


Curse my name

by do_androids_dream



Series: Road of no release (A wolf and his flame series) [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Affection, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Drama & Romance, Established Relationship, Fanart, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Light Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mystery, Non-Canon Relationship, Original Character(s), Post-Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), Serious Injuries, Sorceresses, Witchers Have Feelings (The Witcher), and some surprises, involving a crazy cat school witcher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 35
Words: 61,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24019564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/do_androids_dream/pseuds/do_androids_dream
Summary: The imperial palace does not come to rest, the next threat is already at hand. Geralt has to find out if the mysterious unknown sorceress still wants to kill him and Emhyr - and in doing so, he will uncover a secret from Emhyr's past ...Or: Geralt has to pretend to be the Emperor's husband, gets beaten up more or less voluntarily, has to team up with a cat school witcher and the crazy sorceress probably wants to snatch Emhyr away from him. What a mess!
Relationships: Emhyr var Emreis/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Series: Road of no release (A wolf and his flame series) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724449
Comments: 289
Kudos: 76





	1. Introduction

Hey! If you're new to my stories: This one is a **sequel** to ["Ride into obsession",](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23357794/chapters/56667709) but you can totally start with this fic.

Playlists (covering songs I listened to while writing): [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNN0QGNgLD0GZpydXkMGlMHzJjdzP1a8O) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/06DxdDBVr97HiJvLJpXDcl?si=x86w4iskQHGtbTLzl3nKwg).

I'm a non-native, and this fic was not beta-read. 

Thank you for reading this! I'm still amazed by how many people actually like this story. If you're one of them, feel free to leave a comment, or, if it's more comfortable to you, reach out to me on my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/DreamAndroids) or [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/do-androids-dream-ao3acc).

I love hearing from you! Also artists: Please get in touch if you feel inspired for fanart. Love it :)


	2. My intention's good, unleash the beast

— 1 —

**My intention’s good, unleash the beast**

"Geralt?"

Actually, Emhyr didn't want to disturb the moment, because he liked what he saw: Geralt, on his stomach, completely naked, the milk-white hair fell wildly into his face, his eyes half-closed, the man was almost asleep. It was hardly the best time to approach him on a somewhat delicate subject, but he had his reasons. Almost regretfully, Emhyr stroked Geralt's skin with his hand, caressing the new scar on his right side - it was still slightly raised and didn't yet have the faded colour most others on his body had.

He received a simple "Hm".   
There were only few moments when Geralt - like himself - was so relaxed. It was regrettable that Emhyr wanted to take advantage of this moment.  
"There is something I wanted to talk to you about," he began.  
Geralt blew a stubborn streak away from his mouth before he answered.   
"Seriously? Now?"

They lay on the floor, on a surprisingly warm fur rug right next to the fire. It was almost cheesy, but in fact, they just hadn't made it to Emhyr's bed. Geralt had spent a few days on his winery - partly to check on things, partly to get his thoughts in order. Besides they had started to worry there: At first the place had been teeming with strangers and he himself had not been in the best condition, then suddenly everyone had disappeared and there had been rumors that he had died. Well, the rumours were true, but he had spared the inhabitants of Corvo Bianco with the details. He had only lasted there for a week - in fact, his cook Marlene had practically thrown him out. Somehow she had found out that he was brooding over his feelings - whether they were real or due to the fact that he had almost (well, technically, really) died. That she hadn't beaten him with a wooden spoon was a miracle, but she had at least given him a proper telling-off.

So he had come back, back to Wyzima, back to Emhyr. The consequence was that, as usual, his belongings were scattered around the room (while Emhyr's clothes miraculously lay neatly on a chair by the bed). Only that they were lying on the floor was new, but it didn't matter to him right now, because if Emhyr hadn't spoken, he would have fallen asleep right there.    
"Well, I was going to talk to you about it in the morning, actually ..."  
"As I remember, you have a council meeting tomorrow morning," Geralt mumbled.  
"That's right."  
Geralt opened his eyes - gold or amber? Emhyr was never sure what to call the colour, he just knew he found them fascinating. Geralt turned on his side, leaned on one elbow, looked at him searchingly.  
„You're saying you want to tell me something you might as well _order_ me to tomorrow - but you want my approval today?"  
Emhyr didn't answer. It had been perfectly clear to him that Geralt would see through this little maneuver quickly. However, he hadn't planned it in advance - he hadn't known that the man would show up again just today. Geralt rarely announced himself.  
  
"So you lure me into your bed - well, not even into your bed - to convince me to do something I probably don't want to do? That's bold, even for you."  
Emhyr could tell from his voice, although not lacking in sarcasm, that he wasn't really upset. However, he did not yet know what it was about.    
"I didn't actually need to _lure_ you," he replied calmly.   
"I guess not", Geralt admitted with a fine smile. „I'm listening. What is it?"  
"You won't like it."  
"I'm sure I won't, otherwise you wouldn't have waited for me to stretch my bare ass to you before telling me."  
A flash of light in Emhyr's eyes told him he was right.  
"Very well," Emhyr began.  
And then there was a knock at the door.  
  
"Your Imperial Majesty? Sir?" a voice was heard from outside.  
Geralt rolled his eyes. Emhyr didn't curse, he was too much in control - Geralt had only ever heard him swear once before. But he got up immediately, took a step towards the bed, grabbed the silk robe lying on it and threw it over himself quickly. Then he was almost at the door, giving Geralt no chance try to cover himself somehow.  
Emhyr crossed the small anteroom and opened the door. In front of it stood one of the new guards. It was to his credit that the man did not even blink when the Emperor stood before him, thus lightly clothed.

"What?" Emhyr said surprisingly calm. "I thought I made myself clear about any disturbance."  
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. There's been another... incident."  
Emhyr raised his eyebrows.  
"Where?"

The guard opened his mouth to answer, but instead of words, a rush of blood came out, and his eyes were suddenly wide open before he fell upon Emhyr. He could barely swerve. Geralt immediately jumped to his feet, shouted to Emhyr, "Get away from the door!" and searched for his leather pants. Emhyr obeyed instantly. Just as he himself sometimes used the Emperor's voice, Geralt's voice also occasionally had an authority that was better followed. That had been the voice of the witcher, and Emhyr knew when it was better to listen to that voice. He stepped aside and took a quick look at the corpse in front of him. There was an arrow sticking out of the man's back.

Geralt had put on his trousers, shirt and boots, reached for the steel sword that - next to its counterpart, the silver sword - stood neatly next to the bed, quite unlike his other belongings.He cast a cautious glance through the half-open door, but it was quiet behind it. Pretty quiet for an ordinary afternoon in the palace - most definitely too quiet, because not just one single guard was supposed to stand outside Emhyr's chambers. He quickly pulled the body inside, closed the door and looked for his armor. It wasn't his wolven armor which he still missed painfully, but no matter what he was wearing, these arrows would pierce his plate as well.

"Stay here and bolt the door. I'm not gonna be fucked with again."  
Emhyr knew exactly what he meant.   
"At least ghosts don't shoot arrows, I guess," he replied dryly.  
"Neither do sorceresses," Geralt returned.   
"I don't think it has anything to do with what happened the other day."  
Geralt looked at him searchingly.  
"If it's about what you wanted to tell me, save it for later. Just do what I told you."  
"You know who you're giving orders to?"  
Geralt smiled.   
"Guess what? I know that for a fact."

Then he opened the door, sword in hand, and stepped into the quiet, empty corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Point of no return".


	3. Outside they say death is waiting

— 2 —

**Outside they say death is waiting  
**

It was indeed quiet in the corridor, and the second guard was completely absent. _At least no body_ , Geralt thought, but that could mean anything from a harmless pee break to another betrayal. There was no trace of the archer in the passage, at least not an obvious one. However ... the rest of an odor was noticeable, at least for Geralt, even if only slightly. It took some concentration, but finally he came up with it: sweat, leather, weapon oil. It was really hardly more than a whiff, but maybe it was possible to follow it.

All drowsiness had fallen away from him. He had indeed been tired when he arrived a few hours ago - it had been a long ride from Touissant, and Emhyr's welcome had been more than impetuous. But now he was nothing but alert. Geralt looked back and hesitated. Where was the second guard? Why had an archer made it this far into the palace again? In this unclear situation it would probably be better to stay and protect the Emperor, but he couldn't follow the trail for much longer. It was not strong enough for that.

Geralt grasped the sword more firmly when he heard footsteps. They came from the adjacent passage on the right, not from the other side where the steps led to the lower levels. That could mean two things: Either the intruders had already penetrated very far - too far - into the palace. Or it was... Triss, who had just come around the corner. For a moment the sorceress appeared to him like an echo from the past: barely three weeks ago it had been Mikaela who had taken the same way for almost the same reason. The thought struck him hard. He had hardly spoken to Emhyr for almost a day after his lover had told him about her death. Emhyr had, unusually enough,apologized about half a dozen times, thinking he should have told him earlier. Until he finally understood that Geralt felt responsible. Guilty. And he still did.

The sight of Triss distracted him a little. Blood ran down from the redheaded sorceress' right hand, holding a dagger. He recognized this dagger, he had given it to her once.   
"What's wrong?" he asked.   
"Oh, that? Is not my blood," she replied, looking as if she was searching for something to wipe the blood off - only not on her own clothes, for she was wearing a rather formal dress. Of course, Geralt thought, she was currently fulfilling some of the formal functions in the palace. Emhyr hadn't made it official yet, but it looked like Triss would become his new court sorceress - at least indefinitely. Aretuza was in chaos since Margarita had disappeared. None of the sorceresses there was capable enough to protect the palace. And Triss had surprisingly agreed. What the kingdom of Kovir thought of this was not entirely clear to Geralt.

"Then whose?" he asked.  
"An archer. Well, a guy with a crossbow, actually. Lies back there," she replied, pointing vaguely in the direction she had come from.   
"Why did you..."  
"Because he came too close to me to magically knock him out in time. However, I have carried this dagger with me at all times since I came here."  
Geralt frowned.   
"I have the feeling that someone hid some essential details from me," he muttered.   
"Then ask _someone_ for it, you have actually missed something."   
Geralt looked at her slightly irritated. Her voice had gained some sarcasm lately.  
It was not quite clear to him what the reason was, but at least she had been much softer in the past. Not that he didn't like it - it suited her somehow. Still, he still wondered if she really wanted to be here.   
"I'll take care of the Emperor, you deal with the Archer," she now suggested. Geralt nodded. Then he turned the corner.

The scent, now almost completely gone, still stuck a little to the man lying in front of the door to Triss' chambers. She had hit him with the dagger on the left side of his chest, but that alone wouldn't have been enough to stop him. Obviously, Geralt concluded, the unexpected resistance had forced the man to the ground, whereupon Triss had put a paralyzing spell on him. For he was sitting there motionless, leaning against the wall, but clearly conscious, the arrowless crossbow only a finger's breadth away from his hand - and he seemed very angry.

Geralt kicked the crossbow a bit further away. It might not have an arrow, but it was still usable as a weapon. Then he got down on his knees and looked at the man, scrutinizingly.  
"I suppose talking still works?"  
The answer was a load of spit, but it missed Geralt.  
"I'll take that as a yes. Who sent you?"  
"You'll see," said the crossbowman with an ugly grin.  
Geralt sighed.   
"You realize that the spell also stops the bleeding?" he said with a vague hand movement towards the shooter's chest.   
"That's not so bad," the latter growled.   
He was right about that, but Geralt had hoped that he hadn't noticed. The last archer in the palace had been rather of the stupid kind.

"Maybe not. I could make it worse."  
Even for that, all he got was a grin. Geralt stood up. He wouldn't get ahead that way, that much was clear. But just as he was about to say something, he heard loud noises, clearly coming from near Emhyr's chambers. And then Triss.  
_"Geralt!"  
_Shit.  
Geralt took one last look at the man - he had no idea how long the spell would last, but he trusted that Triss knew what she was doing. He rushed back into the other corridor. There the sorceress was, hands up, in the middle of a spell - and opposite her five armed men, three swords, an archer, an axe.  
_Shit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from "I'm alive".


	4. They bleed, bleed, bleed for the order / They follow their leader

— 3 —

**They bleed, bleed, bleed for the order / They follow their leader**

_"_ _You gotta be kidding me,“_ Geralt thought faintly. It could not be true that this damn place was attacked again in such a short time. He looked over to Triss. Her spell was quick but aggressive: The archer, who had retreated a bit behind the other men, surprisingly fell victim to an arrow. An arrow of pure light, sheer magic, not flickering a bit despite all the haste.   
  
Geralt focused on the swordsmen. The one with the axe was slower, which gave Triss more time. She just had to prevent him from trying to throw the axe - or getting too close. But he had the disadvantage that the axe was much heavier than a sword and he needed a perfect angle to hit properly. While Geralt still repelled the first, quite brisk attack - he often asked himself with such guys if they really had a death wish, why the hell would they attack a witcher? - he heard the stomping of heavy boots from the direction of the stairs. Either reinforcements arrived or... more bastards. Three more men, but he also heard fighting noises and screaming from downstairs. Apparently the army was not completely useless.

But what was even more surprising: behind him, the door opened and Emhyr stepped out. He was, by his standards, almost modestly dressed _(but definitely not protected enough_ , Geralt thought, _and what the hell was the man thinking anyway?_ ) and held a sword in his hand. His own sword, basically an heirloom that he had once wrested from those who had overthrown his father and deceived him of his title. Nowadays it was hanging on the wall in his chambers - he called it „an admonition and a reminder“. Of course, he never used it, but he was able to: Emhyr was not a bad swordsman after all, maybe a little out of practice. However, in Geralt’s opinion it was not the right time to verify that.

"What do you think you're doing?" Geralt hissed at him while he fended off a much too hasty advance of an attacker. In the meantime, he had bought Triss enough time. She struck with an enormous wave of energy that temporarily tore almost all attackers from their feet - even those who were still approaching from the stairs.   
"I'll get my palace back," Emhyr replied curtly. "This stops now."  
"Go back," Triss shouted. But the Emperor did not think to listen to her. He crossed the short distance to Geralt and stood beside him, his sword ready for battle. Geralt didn't have time to discuss this - the first men stood up again, the axe bearer had used their short conversation and was ready to strike out. Geralt threw _Aard_ at him, which took him and the two swordsmen behind him off their feet again.   
"Stay the hell behind me," he growled at Emhyr and turned to the next enemy.

At that moment, the screaming and stomping became louder and finally the palace guards reached the stairs. From that moment on, the fight was as good as over. The rest of the small gang of bandits had a simple choice - surrender or fight to the end. Only a few decided to do so, and the imperial soldiers arrested the others. Geralt remembered the archer and ran hastily around the corner - but the paralysis spell had lost its effect, the man was long gone. He cursed and returned to the others. Still, there was one person left to vent his frustration.   


However, he was not the first: Triss had already built himself up before Emhyr - given the not inconsiderable difference in size, this did not lack a certain amount of comedy - and scolded him. Politely, but firmly.   
"I thought we had reached a certain understanding about this whole court sorceress business. The whole point of this is to protect you. That means you don't get involved. It never occurred to the king of Kovir to go after a band of bandits with a sword."  
"No," Emhyr calmly replied. "However, the king of Kovir does not have to fend off attacks on the entire realm several times a week."  
"Several times a week?" Geralt had come closer and looked at Emhyr with a frown. "What the hell happened here?"  
Triss pursed her lips and said, "You guys really need to work this out amongst yourselves. What about the archer, Geralt?"  
"He's gone."  
"Well, anyway, there are some prisoners. We'll deal with them some time later, all right?“

Geralt nodded, and with an implied bow, Triss said goodbye to the Emperor - without even asking if he still needed her, Geralt noticed. She had acquired an impressive position within a very short time, and Emhyr seemed to approve. He better should, Geralt thought fleetingly - because apart from her he could hardly find a more capable sorceress. Geralt knew that Emhyr definetely had no interest in asking Yennefer for support. In fact, he seemed to find it hard to bear when Ciri brought her along. Geralt wondered if Ciri was thinking about using Yennefer as her own court sorceress when she took over the throne one day - if Yen even would agree to that.

While Emhyr gave orders to the soldiers and made sure that it became quiet again in the hallway, Geralt checked the situation in the lower floor. There was a kind of orderly chaos: the palace never stood completely still, although it seemed a little less busy than usual, and it was currently teeming with soldiers who had to calm excited nobles. Geralt checked with the commander to make sure the situation was under control, and since the commander had to report to the Emperor personally, he accompanied him back to Emhyr afterwards.

He was still standing in the corridor and supervised the withdrawal of the prisoners and the transport of the few who had been killed.   
"Your Imperial Highness. The situation is under control," the commander addressed him.  
"How many?"   
The commander did not move a muscle when he answered.  
"Seventeen, sir."  
"Seventeen?"  
"No sign of the leader, sir."  
"Of course not," Emhyr muttered. He said aloud, "Double the guards."  
The commander nodded, lowered his head in a fleeting, quick gesture of greeting and left.  
Geralt turned to Emhyr, pointed his finger at him and said, "You obviously have some explaining to do."  
Emhyr focused his dark eyes on him and answered ambiguously, "So it seems. "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Harvester of souls".


	5. The blame’s on me / Cause I was not there

— 4 —

**The blame’s on me / Cause I was not there  
**

****

****

He led Geralt back to his chambers, which the witcher found strange. Emhyr was extremely precise and conscientious about his tasks - and Geralt had already detained him today with his unexpected appearance. He had expected that especially after this incident the Emperor would descend into his recently repaired study room, where he would probably brood for hours about some plans.   
  
But he didn't. He walked silently ahead into the second room adjacent to the vestibule, obviously assuming that Geralt would follow him already. In the lavishly furnished room he first turned to the empty space on the wall, carefully placing the sword there. Then he sat down on a velvet chaise longue with his legs crossed, an amazingly casual gesture for him. Geralt couldn't make any sense of the man's behaviour and hesitantly stopped in the middle of the room.

"Come here", Emhyr said gently.   
With a certain mistrust Geralt approached and sat down carefully at the edge of the piece of furniture, a little bit apart from Emhyr. The latter frowned.   
"I won't bite."  
"I'm just wondering what's going on."  
"What do you mean?"  
"You know what I mean. When were you going to tell me these attacks have started again?“  
Emhyr shrugged.  
"I haven't had a chance yet," he replied. "You have not been back long."  
"How often?" Geralt asked.   
Emhyr didn't even blink. He didn't pretend not to understand the question.   
"This is the second time," he admitted.  
"I've only been away for a _week_."  
„Eight days“, Emhyr specified, nodding. Geralt looked at him sharply.  
"You could have sent me a message."  
"Maybe I did not want to," Emhyr replied composedly.  
"Why not?"  
  
Emhyr sighed. He reached out and grasped Geralt's hand.   
"Because I did not quite understand why you left."  
Geralt frowned.  
"I told you I was going to Corvo Bianco to see how things were going."  
"And we both know that was mainly a subterfuge," Emhyr replied. Realizing that Geralt did not pull his hand away, he continued: "I was under the impression that you wanted to reflect in private."  
"I did," Geralt admitted. "And then a rather smart person made it clear to me that I was acting pretty stupid.“  
A slight smirk curled Emhyr's lips.  
"Marlene?"  
Geralt smiled.

Emhyr had met the cook with the maternal touch on the rare occasions he had visited the winery. Geralt's majordomo, whom he had described as quite stoic, had visibly turned pale when he first appeared there. Corvo Bianco was undoubtedly beautiful, but it could hardly be described as particularly representative. The prospect of accommodating the Emperor of all people there was a challenge even for the serene Barnabas-Basilius. Marlene, however, had remained completely calm. He had gained the impression that she had treated him no differently than any other guest. She hadn't made any special effort with the food, did not comment on the modest crockery for the occasion or make any other fuss. Obviously, she had absorbed all the little details throughout the evening: The way their hands touched each other during dinner, as if by chance. The glances. The strange familiarity, although Geralt had claimed that the Emperor was here to talk about Ciri in an "informal setting“, a ridiculous idea. The fact that dinner was very short, although Geralt never missed a meal and seemed to enjoy this part of his life in Touissaint very much. Anyway, Marlene had not been surprised when they both showed up for breakfast the next morning from Geralt's room. It didn't seem unexpected to Emhyr that it was Marlene of all people who had given Geralt a piece of her mind.

"You could have at least made sure that Ciri stays", Geralt said now.  
"And upset the court in Brugge even more?"  
"But Yennefer was there..."  
"Brugge is not interested in negotiating with a sorceress," Emhyr interrupted him.  
They were both silent for a moment. Geralt found it surprisingly difficult to blame Emhyr for not caring enough for his own protection. He had managed without him before, and he would always manage when Geralt was on the path. That their feelings had deepened might have made things a bit more complicated, but that fact would not change.

"Since we're obviously avoiding discussing the attacks - what did you want to tell me? The thing I'm not going to like," Geralt reminded him.   
"This has quite a lot to do with the attacks", Emhyr said. "They come from Cidaris."  
Geralt, who had eased a bit in the meantime and had also reached for Emhyr's hand, looked at him surprised.  
"You already know that? What are you going to do about it?"  
"Well, you see, that's the thing. Cidaris is aware that sooner or later it will be part of the Empire, one way or another. These basically ridiculous little attacks are a way of showing their teeth. There's only one problem with this: so far, it's just the uncoordinated attempts of some bandits. The King claims to have nothing to do with it, and I can hardly prove otherwise."  
"You want to expand Nilfgaard that far?“

"Geralt..." Emhyr said in a tone to remind him of what they had once decided: That they would not argue about politics, especially his politics. There were good reasons why witchers usually stayed out of the political arena. They both had their reputations, and while much of what was said about the Emperor was true, Geralt knew that some things were simply wrong and a large part dramatically exaggerated. By now he knew all of the man's facets, and even if there were things that would perhaps always remain unfamiliar to him, he respected them.  
  
"So, Cidaris," Geralt said conciliatory. "What are you going to do?"  
He doubted that Emhyr would carelessly jeopardize the current peace, fragile as it was. And that wasn't what the man had in mind.  
"Negotiate, of course. I shall go there personally and present some convincing arguments to the king."  
Geralt managed to keep quiet about it and didn't even move a muscle in his face.  
After a while he remarked: "I suppose you don't intend to show up with half the army there. Who's going to guarantee your safety?"  
And then he realized...   
"You want me to be your _bodyguard_?"   
He pulled a face.  
"You know I don't like doing that. But you also know that I will do it for you. Which leads me to believe that's not all it is. Don't you think it's a little conspicuous, showing up there with a witcher in tow? They might take it as a threat.“  
  
"Exactly. I wish to come to an arrangement with the king, not frighten him."  
"Hm."   
Geralt thought about it for a moment.  
"I guess that means stupid banquets, endless discussions…"  
"Dull dancing..."  
"Do you want to torture me? I certainly won't _dance_."  
"I reckon that cannot be avoided entirely," Emhyr replied with a strange expression on his face.  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
"Well, you see, it is quite right that you cannot accompany me as a witcher. Officially, I mean."  
"So what am I supposed to accompany you as?"

"As my husband."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh, Geralt's not gonna like this ...
> 
> Chapter title is from "Noldor".


	6. Strange things are happening. Changing of all plans

— 5 —

**Strange things are happening. Changing of all plans  
**

****

****

"I will definitely not _marry_ you," said Geralt with a facial expression that fluctuated between extremely baffled and panicked.   
"Careful, I could take this personally. You're not _actually_ supposed to marry me, you idiot."  
Geralt felt pretty stupid.   
"All I want is for you to watch my back as unobtrusively as possible. No _witchering_ , but definitely the witcher as backup“, Emhyr continued.  
  
"I guess I can do that," Geralt countered, although his gestures and facial expressions made it clear that he was anything but convinced.   
"When do you want to leave?"  
Emhyr was silent for a moment.  
"Tomorrow morning, after the council meeting," he finally replied reservedly.   
Geralt raised his brows.  
"You must have been very sure that I agree. Wait, but you couldn't have known I was coming today. You didn't really plan to go there all alone?"  
"I wouldn't be alone, I have a very capable sorceress on my side, as you well know."  
"And yet you distrust Cidaris so much that you devised this little plan... when did you come up with it?"  
"The very moment you burst in here today.“

Geralt smiled against his will.  
"You must have really missed me."  
"You have no idea how handsome you look, in full armor and with a rather confused look on your face, disturbing the court."  
"I haven't..."  
Emhyr suddenly moved closer, pulled Geralt towards him and closed his mouth with a kiss. He reached up and pulled the ribbon from Geralt’s hair, which, suddenly untamed, fell straight into his face.   
"And now you are trying to seduce me into agreeing to this?"  
"I do not have to _try_ ," Emhyr replied.

And that was a fact.

—  
  
The next day started early, and they left as soon as the necessary council meetings were over. It was a long journey, and it could undoubtedly have been made more pleasant - they could have taken carriages, maybe even used portals (Geralt was grateful that they didn't), but Emhyr had strangely insisted that they would take horses. It was a spectacular sight and anything but discreet - which may have been the point exactly: A small delegation of the army, a lot of pack horses for the tents and everything else, a handful of servants, scribers and protocol administrators, and above all, right behind two heavy armed soldiers, Emhyr, Geralt and Triss on their horses. The flame-red hair of the sorceress alone, which she wore open today, was a signal in itself. Emhyr and Geralt were both in armor - something Geralt had insisted on, archers in mind -, both covered by heavy capes with the Nilfgaard emblem - something Emhyr had insisted on in turn.

Geralt still wondered what the point of this whole parade was. Was it about proximity to the people (doubtful), a demonstration of power (imaginable) or something completely different? In any case, Geralt did not find it very conducive to his task. If he had to play the bodyguard, he would have preferred less attention. He was also still angry with Emhyr, who had sneaked away in the morning to attend the council meeting - a meeting in which, in Geralt’s opinion, he should have attended as well to clarify the details of this hastily developed plan. Geralt would have preferred to know the route (and even more, he would have tested it beforehand), even if they obviously only moved on the main roads. If he was personally responsible for protecting the Emperor, he would have preferred to set some rules. However, Emhyr had taken matters into his own hands, and one of _his_ rules had apparently been to let him sleep in like some idiot.  
  
Emhyr, on the other hand, didn't care about his anger, or he didn't sense it. Triss, who flanked the emperor - like Geralt on the other side - noticed the tense atmosphere between them and finally said: "Well, you're doing quite well, I think."  
"What?" Geralt asked.  
"You know, the way you play the married couple."  
Emhyr glanced at her.  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
Triss straightened up in the saddle and looked at them both with a mischievous smile.  
"The way you behave - one has obviously done something wrong, the other punishes him with contempt, that's pretty convincing. It will certainly be a topic of conversation in the royal court."  
"Brave," Emhyr remarked cooly.  
Geralt had to grin against his will.

The feeling vanished quickly as they approached a particularly narrow part of the path. The forest was especially dense here, which Geralt didn't like, because that would mean that they had to break up the formation temporarily to ride one after the other. That was exactly the reason why the path should have been scouted out beforehand, Geralt thought grimly. He pushed Roach, sheared off and rode a bit ahead.

It was comparatively quiet, which was not surprising - an assembly of more than a dozen mounted horses frightened even birds, let alone small game, at least temporarily. Geralt led Roach into a light trot and listened attentively to the sounds of the forest, while he looked around. Everything seemed more than normal. The sun was shining, even if its spring-like rays did not yet reach the forest floor at this point. The path would remain so narrow for a while, so he rode a little further ahead, just to be sure that everything was okay - and it seemed so. He was still alert, he could not shed his nature. His senses were focused on the forest. He looked back for a moment, noticing the observant glances that were being paid to him. Even Emhyr looked as if he thought his caution was excessive. Geralt had the feeling that he took this bodyguard thing much less serious than his little spouse game, although they were not even near the royal court. He would have to talk to him about it.

Only not just now - a glint in the thicket to his right that he could just about see in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He reined Roach in and gave a handsignal to the back to stop the convoy. The soldiers in front repeated the signal and they came to a halt. One of them waved to one of the rear soldiers, who should slowly catch up to Geralt. Geralt sat very still and stared into the forest. Not a sound could be heard. Now even the birds were completely silent. His hand automatically went up behind his back, but he still wore the cape, which stopped the movement. But by the time he noticed that whatever shone there seemed to be coming closer, it was already too late: with a loud roaring sound something - _someone_ \- jumped out of the undergrowth and knocked him off his horse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Damned for all time".


	7. You’ve troubled my day / Now feel the pain

— 6 —

**You’ve troubled my day / Now feel the pain**

He hit the ground hard, no more time to unroll, tangled up in the stupid cape and with a heavy weight on his chest - a trained wild dog snapped at his face, Geralt could barely dodge. Roach, otherwise so stoic, was neighing nervously and flinched back. Right behind the animal a fat guy emerged from the underwood, armed with a club - _a club, by Melitele, what was this supposed to be, a peasant uprising?_

The dog spread his drool all over Geralt's face and bit into his armor. The guy with the club came closer, and Geralt rolled half to one side, pulled the dog around and frantically groped for the dagger on his hip. The beast snapped at his face again and came dangerously close to his nose, but Geralt had the dagger now and he slit the damn dog open from bottom to top. A last squeaking bark, and the dog went limp above him. Quickly, Geralt pushed the carcass aside and jumped up. Meanwhile, club-guy was with him and took a swing. With a single flowing movement, Geralt tore off his cloak and grabbed the sword while avoiding this first, ridiculously imprecise attack.

The blow with the club went nowhere, and the guy was done with a swipe from the wrist. Geralt looked around. Behind him, the soldiers had formed a formation around Emhyr, but Triss had dismounted and stood before them all. The remaining soldiers had advanced. They were attacked from both flanks: On the right and left, at least each a dozen attackers had pushed forward, most of them much better armed than with simple clubs.

Geralt ran back in their direction. The soldiers were visibly striving to protect the emperor, but they were too few to effectively fend off the attack at the same time without risking to give up the formation. Triss drowned out the battle sounds with her incantation, and Geralt noticed just in time what she was doing - he threw himself to the ground. The spell hit everyone who was within a certain radius, and he had correctly estimated the distance: Around him, the attackers fell down in a huge storm, pushed aside like building blocks by children. 

There were still enough on their feet. Geralt jumped up again, whirled around and crashed into them like a precise machine. And that was him, in a way. The witcher as a backup, Emhyr had said, and that's exactly what he would get. Geralt took his anger out on them, the whole fucked up morning, the bodyguard and husband bullshit. He hit three in a single twist before he had to reorient. Geralt looked back quickly to make sure Emhyr did what he had to do at least this time - namely, nothing but stay in the protection of his men. He didn't see him, which made him believe that the formation was working. He had no time to concentrate on it, because now he had to fend off two swords approaching him - from the same side, which was pretty silly. They obviously had no idea who they were dealing with.

But he might have been too confident, or too distracted for a moment when he looked back, in any case he hadn't expected these bandits or whatever they were to let a dog go. Another, almost rabid-looking beast suddenly jumped at him, a creature twice the size of the former one - _is that even a wild dog_ , he thought - and it almost threw him to the ground. But only almost, even though the creature had clenched its teeth into his shoulder and seemed to be able to bite through his armor right there and then. 

He tried to shake off the beast while optimizing his stance, but it was damn heavy and tore at him like he was some kind of chicken. Or a _bone_. And if he didn't do something soon, there would probably only be a bone left of his shoulder. At the same time, the two sword-bearers attacked again, with that victory-conscious grin on their lips that these guys always had when they thought they had an advantage. However, Geralt noticed out of the corner of his eye that the number of their comrades had decimated considerably in the meantime and the soldiers gained the upper hand.

The dog was heavy and his constant tugging almost pushed him to the ground. Most of the horses had long since fled in panic, but now even the extremely good-natured packhorses of the Nilfgaardians became more and more restless. They were scurrying about, there was a danger that sooner or later they would spread all their load on the road - or over all those who were still standing, and there was enough chaos already.

Geralt couldn't get rid of the damn dog because he couldn't get rid of the two blokes with the sword either. He fended off one attack, but was almost too slow for the second one because of the additional weight, and he involuntarily went down on his knees to repel the advance. He clawed his left hand into the animal's stinking fur, right into the neck, and tore at its head. Two attempts were necessary, then he held the beast, which was still trying to snap at him, but by now he was on his knees and the dog was too heavy, his attempt to throw him towards the attackers ended rather miserably. 

Geralt heard the soldiers coming closer, more than he saw them, and the two bandits noticed them too and looked at each other nervously for a moment - they too had now realized that they and whatever was left of their gang were suddenly dramatically outnumbered. He used this moment to get back on his feet again, but it was useless: Right now one of the remaining horses went completely crazy because of the dog and came running towards him. Surprised, but not completely unprepared, his fingers formed a fast _Axii_ to calm the animal. It worked, it worked as well as ever, but the horse had been in the middle of the movement. It was stopped abruptly, lifted its front hooves, didn't know where to put them - and one of the remaining bandits took advantage of this moment by trying to land a last desperate blow with his sword. Geralt barely defended the advance, but had to take a step backwards - and he landed directly in the horse's movement. A hoof hit him in the back of the head, and while he still felt that he was falling, he only thought: _Shit_. And then nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some background music for the chapter? Here you go: [Shamelessly taking music from my favorite show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0CL4IEXx8w)
> 
> Chapter title is from "Time stands still (at the iron hill)"


	8. The traps are all placed by command

— 7 —

**The traps are all placed by command  
**

Even before he opened his eyes, he had the feeling that his head should actually hurt more. But whatever was there, it was as good as gone, and he felt a hand on his forehead. When he finally managed to open his eyes, he saw Triss above him, obviously healing him. Geralt found it was a waste, there were probably enough wounded she could help. However, he thought, still a bit dizzy, it would probably have looked strange if she didn't heal the Emperor's husband of all people, after he had just done probably most of the work. Against his will he had to grin, not even realizing which part of it he found so funny.  
  
"Are you so happy to see me?" the sorceress asked. "That's it, good as new."  
"That would have healed on its own", Geralt growled.  
"You're welcome. He insisted," she replied and got up.  
Behind her, Emhyr stood, holding out a hand and then helping him up.   


He held his hand for a moment too long when he asked, "Are you all right?"  
"Nothing happened to me", Geralt replied and looked around. They were already sorting out the chaos: There were some wounded, though fortunately no casualties, the servants seemed frightened, and most of the horses had to be recaptured (though, as Geralt noticed, Roach was already around again - she just didn't scare off that easily).   
„It was hardly _nothing_. I have seen men killed by such a kick", said Emhyr. Geralt smiled fleetingly.  
"But hardly a witcher. We are generally considered hardheaded."   
Then he got serious.  
"That's exactly the reason why we should have discussed this matter before," he said with a gesture at the mayhem around them. „I would have never chosen this route.“

Emhyr sighed.  
"I hope you don't expect me to always do things right," he replied - so quietly that only Geralt could hear it. Geralt stared at him in surprise: he didn't really seem to be referring to the council meeting, or even to the fact that they should have discussed the matter more thoroughly. And it was definitely not his habit to admit a mistake.   
Emhyr tossed him the cape with the Nilfgaard emblem, that Geralt had left at the place of the first attack.   
"You should put it back on, otherwise they'll wonder why you show up in Cidaris with full armor."  
"We're not even close to the border", Geralt protested.   
Emhyr shrugged.  
"Maybe I like it," he said with a strange expression on his face, that Geralt could not interpret.   
"This better not be some kind of kink," Geralt muttered.   
"I heard that," said Emhyr, his face again completely motionless.   


"We should set up camp," Geralt suggested. Emhyr shook his head.   
"We will ride on. Otherwise we'll lose a whole day - and I don't grant Cidaris that triumph."  
"You really think those were the king's men?"  
"At least they were commissioned by him," Emhyr replied. "I do not believe in coincidence. This is the third attack in a very short time, and they started after we agreed to meet."  
"I don't know", Geralt said thoughtfully. He had bent down to look at one of the attackers' bodies. "I mean, what's the point?"  
"We've been through this - a show of force, most likely."   
"Maybe once, but why three times? Besides, if all he wanted to do was get rid of you, he wouldn't have had to agree to a meeting in the first place. I take it there are no prisoners?"  
"No. As a matter of fact, you didn't exactly try very hard to keep anybody alive, did you?"  
"You wanted a bodyguard. Do you think I care who I have to kill to keep you safe?"  
"Whatever, I don't think we'll find out anything if we don't get to Cidaris at all," Emhyr said enervated. He called the commander of the soldiers to him and ordered him to make sure they could travel on shortly. Then he turned around again, only to find Geralt still kneeling on the ground, examining corpses.  
  
"Geralt?"   
The witcher raised his hand briefly - he was not finished yet. Meanwhile, one of the soldiers brought Emhyr's horse. It was a dun horse from a rare zerrikanian breed, even more beautiful and valuable than the absolutely fabulous black horse that he had given to Lambert without hesitation. Geralt witnessed from the corner of his eye how Emhyr stroked the horse's neck gently, whispering something into its ear. The rare gestures were strangely touching. When had the man actually become such a distraction? _Besides,_ Geralt thought, _he is patting a_ ** _horse_** _, you idiot_.  
One soldier had tried to take Roach on the rein, but she had grabbed at him, had left the irritated man behind and trotted alone towards Geralt. He took her snorting as a sign that she found the soldier's behavior rather presumptuous. Geralt turned back to the corpses. Roach nudged him with her nostrils.

"Stop pestering," he murmured.  
"What are you still doing there?" Emhyr asked. "Even your horse wants to go on."  
"She's gotten a little too used to you," he replied. In fact, she had let Emhyr take her reins - highly unusual, Geralt thought. Then he pointed to the bodies of the bandits.  
"Look at this."  
He pointed to the wrists - Geralt had pulled up the sleeves of three men after he had discovered a tattoo on a fourth one who had worn his sleeves rolled up. All four men had the same tattoo.   
Emhyr came closer, a frown on his face.  
"What is this?"

The tattoo showed a symbol he'd never seen before: it looked like three intertwined spirals. Meanwhile, Geralt had gotten up and checked some other bodies, just to be sure. All of them carried the symbol.  
"I'm not quite sure", he said when he came back, "Looks like an ancient magical symbol."  
  
"A triskelion", Triss was suddenly heard, who had returned after helping the wounded.  
"A what?"  
"A triskelion," the sorceress repeated. "Originally a symbol of the druids. I have heard of mages and sorceresses using it as a channel for certain forms of magic.“  
"Druid magic is close to nature", Geralt said thoughtfully.   
"But not necessarily good," Triss continued. "Someone could have controlled these men."  
"A druid, or a mage?" Emhyr asked.  
"That remains unclear. Either is possible. The druids certainly have their reasons for not being very sympathetic to you."  
"The rumors are exaggerated," Emhyr replied more calmly than his expression suggested. Geralt looked at him attentively. In fact, by his standards he seemed almost disturbed, as if a thought had come to him that worried him.   
But before he could approach him about it, Emhyr said, "Maybe they're just part of some crazy druidic cult, and no one controls them except a certain king. We should move on."  
He turned away and without another word, mounted his horse.

Geralt watched him with a frown, as Emhyr slowly moved near the soldiers, who were just waiting for Geralt and Triss to catch up with them.   
"I'm not at all convinced that this has anything to do with Cidaris," he said quietly.  
"Because of the symbols?" Triss asked.  
"Mainly because of the king. Why would Ethain behave like that? As far as I know, they already had quite good connections in the past."  
"That could have changed if the Emperor really wants to merge Cidaris with Nilfgaard," Triss replied. „Besides, his son Mathen sits on the throne now. Yes, his name is the same as his grandfather's," she remarked when she saw the look on Geralt's face.

"I don't like any of this," mumbled Geralt.   
Triss smiled.   
"You were never a great friend of politics."  
"There's no reason for it," he muttered.   
"Well, there is, now that you're the Emperor's consort.“  
Geralt pulled a face.   
"First and foremost, I guess I'm his bodyguard," he said. "And that's obviously enough to keep me busy already."  
He reached for Roach's reins. Triss looked around for her horse. When he had mounted, Geralt took a last look back at the tattooed corpses.  
"In what way do mages use this symbol?" he suddenly asked Triss.

She looked at him keenly.  
"What are you thinking about?" she asked, gazing sceptically at her horse. She was not a great rider and would have preferred a different way of travelling, but she mounted again.  
"Do you think it's possible that they were being controlled?" he replied, while he made Roach walk slowly towards the soldiers.   
"Maybe so," she replied thoughtfully. "Are you thinking of the sorceress?“  
"It would be quite a descent after she summoned a bunch of spirits to attack the palace", Geralt said. The obvious cynicism in his voice could not quite hide the fact that he sounded worried.  
"But not completely absurd," Triss mumbled.  
"I'm not sure about _absurd_. We should be careful."  
A flock of ravens flew over them, croaking, as if to confirm his words.

And with that, they resumed their original positions beside the Emperor and continued their journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Battalions of fear".


	9. Her face will not leave / From the depths of my soul

— 8 —

**Her face will not leave / From the depths of my soul**

The sorceress pondered by the window and glanced out of it. If it seemed as if she was looking at something in the distance, this was only half true: she was more likely to gaze inwards than to really perceive anything of her surroundings. And besides, what she wanted to see was much further away than her eyes could have noticed.

A man approached her from the door. He entered hesitantly, taking a long look at the desolate state of the surroundings - most of the furniture was old and half-destroyed, the walls were smeared with hastily scribbled words, the floor was littered with rubbish. It was already dawning, but no candles were burning, in fact there were not even candles in the wall brackets.   
Why she had chosen this place in the old dilapidated tower as her meeting point was not clear to him. Perhaps because the tower and the soil around it were notorious as cursed.  
It was nonsense, at least he hoped it was - he kissed the pendant that was hanging from a leather band around his neck.   
She had seen that, she had turned around at that very moment. Now she looked at him with a mocking expression.   
"Superstition does not suit you," she said.  
  
Her voice, soft and sweet, did not match her appearance at all. She was probably the ugliest of sorceresses, the man thought. Not that he had much experience with that, thank the gods. But as everyone knew, sorceresses were usually beautiful and seductive, because that was necessary for people to follow their plans, and to disguise their true nature - at least that's what the people told.  
  
It was said that the sorceresses went to great lengths to achieve this beauty. Well, this one clearly didn't. She might look quite pretty with some make-up, but maybe she didn't care about that any more than she cared about clothes, because hers looked very careless. She looked like... and he hoped she couldn't read his mind... she looked like a farmer's wife who had been put into a pretty robe and then forced to wipe the floor with it. Maybe she was interested in other things, otherwise she would not have called him. And he would take care not to underestimate her, just because she did not care about her appearance.

The man didn't know much about her. Usually he avoided learning too much about his clients - he didn't want them to know too much about him either. They didn't even know his name, and that's the way it should be. Those who wanted to hire him knew where they could find him, and then only what they wanted from him and what they paid counted. She looked harmless, but that could be deceptive, and after all she was a sorceress. As much as he knew, she knew how to make people obey her. He thought it was only right, it was what he expected from a sorceress. He had never worked for one before, let alone a mage, and that made him curious. He believed that, as a sorceress, she should be able to achieve everything she wanted on her own.

She came closer now, looked right at him, seemed to estimate his appearance as much as he estimated hers. Now that she was so close to him, he noticed that her nose was not quite straight, her dark hair a little dull. Her eyes were strange, but he couldn't have said in what way. Besides, he didn't want to stare at her. She, in turn, stared boldly at him, contemplating his expressionless face - which, advantageous for his kind of business, was absolutely uninteresting and meaningless.

"A dozen nobles, I heard," she said abruptly. He did not even blink, he just kept looking at her in a blank expression.   
"Even a duke. And the usual clientele, I expect. Enough experience, I suppose?"  
"I should think so."  
She snapped her fingers suddenly right in front of his face. He followed her gaze, but she couldn't frighten him like that.

"I hope so," she went on. "You can't imagine the effort I've put into this."  
"A higher effort means higher costs", the man replied.   
"Bold. We didn't even talk about the target.“  
She circled him - like a snake, he thought fleetingly - and occasionally stroked the muscles of his upper arm with her hand. The touch was uncomfortable, but he was in control of himself, and even now he didn't let it show.

"All right," she finally said. Then she suddenly held a piece of parchment in her hand, folded several times. Had it been there the whole time? Did her filthy robes have secret pockets, or had she conjured it up? He preferred not to think about it. She held the paper out to him, and he took it and unfolded it.

Then he stared for a while at the names on it. For all his expertise, he didn't expect _that_. It explained, somehow, why she tried to engage him - he had undoubtedly earned a reputation of which she either didn't know half or preferred not to mention anything else. If she had thought he would correct her and mention that a duke had by no means been the most difficult target he had ever faced, she had been mistaken. But this ...

"This is impossible," he said. He pointed to the first name. "This is ..."  
"Quite so," replied the sorceress.   
"And this one, seriously?" He pointed to the second name.  
"Is it really impossible?" she asked and looked at him attentively.   
"One of them will do. I don't care which one."  
"Alive?" he asked.  
"Oh, absolutely," she said, and if what appeared on her face was a smile, then she was clearly insane. That was one possible explanation, he thought. She was simply mad. A madwoman with a pile of money. Because what she whispered in his ear now - he almost flinched when she stood so close to him - was the amount she was willing to pay.

"Bring me one of them. Alive, but not necessarily unharmed, if that is what it takes. Bring them here."  
She pressed a second piece of parchment into his hand. It was an old map. He studied it briefly, then nodded.   
"I know where it is."  
"Well, is it possible now?" asked the sorceress.

"It may take a while," he replied. "It is not easy. But perhaps it is possible, yes."  
"Perhaps is not enough," she said. "I hope you realize that."  
And with these words she raised her hand almost casually, and a violent gust of wind pushed him out of the door, so that he fell to the ground in the corridor behind it. A heavy purse landed in his lap. As he reached for it, he noticed a short, sharp pain in his wrist. A mark had appeared there - some kind of tattoo, he thought, a strange gift of intertwined spirals. But more likely a curse. He thought he might have bitten off more than he bargained for. But the purse was filled to the brim with gold pieces. A down payment, but a generous one.

The door closed all by itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "When sorrow sang".


	10. Joyful it seems but / Then suddenly / By one false move it’s blown away

— 9 —

**Joyful it seems but / Then suddenly / By one false move it’s blown away**

\- 2 days later- 

  
"I don't think anybody believes that husband stuff."  
"What makes you think so?" Emhyr asked, while his fingers slowly ran through Geralt's hair, which fell wildly into his face once again.  
"I mean, why would they? You bring a witcher to your negotiations after you've been attacked several times. You can hang your symbol upon me and force me to walk around here all day long in ridiculous clothes, but the way they look at me, they see a witcher. And that tells them what? That you don't trust them.“

Geralt, with his head in Emhyr's lap, lying stretched out on the settee in the guest quarters they had been assigned, looked up at him. The room was dim - it was late, a long day lay behind them. No sooner had they arrived than the charade had begun. He had to walk around dressed up like a trifle ridiculous, leaving his armour and swords behind, and he really had no confidence in the armed guards standing outside the door. He had to spend the whole day next to Emhyr, who checked off one annoying agenda item after another. Geralt already had gained enough insights into Emhyr's daily routine in Wyzima to know that the whole thing would be a test of patience. But he didn’t imagine that it would be so boring, that he would just wish to lie unstably drunk under some table. And that had only been the beginning, a mere fawning around until - maybe tomorrow, maybe not - they would meet the king.

No sooner had they returned to their rooms than Geralt had torn off his doublet and thrown himself on the settee. He was already slightly drunk, as he had been offered wine all the time (which, as he learned too late, he wasn’t supposed to drink - what was the point?), but not drunk enough not to notice how exhausting the day had been - although he hadn't done anything at all. Emhyr, on the other hand, didn't even look tired, but Geralt knew that he rarely let it show. Even now, he didn’t allow himself a moment that he did not have completely under control. But meanwhile he knew him too well: The man didn't stroke his hair without a reason.

"That's the point, Geralt," Emhyr said. “They can believe whatever they want, as long as they have the subliminal impression that I might have brought you along for another reason."  
"Okay, so you bring me in as your secret bodyguard, officially tell everyone we're married, but expect them to suspect that's a lie and you actually brought me in as protection? What kind of game is that supposed to be?"  
"Same as always," Emhyr replied calmly. "You particularly enjoy political intrigue, don't you?"  
"Sarcasm is really rather my metier."  
"Oh, I'm quite good at that myself," Emhyr returned. Then he gave Geralt a rare, albeit mocking smile and continued: "Besides, I'm sure we could convince them - I could think of activities that you're not usually very quiet during."  
Geralt raised his eyebrows.  
"Dirty."  
"If you say so...I would like that, wolf."  
"If you call me that, I get suspicious."  
"I thought aroused“, Emhyr muttered in Geralt's hair.  
"You’d like that“, Geralt replied.

There was a knock at the door.

„Is this some kind of goddamn joke?" growled Emhyr. "It's the middle of the night."  
Geralt pulled himself away from Emhyr's embrace and jumped up.  
"I'll go see. I hardly believe anyone is complaining about the _noise_.“  
"At least not yet," Emhyr retorted. "But if you walk out the door like that, I guarantee you'll fire up the rumor mill."  
"I still have my pants on," Geralt said and opened the door sweepingly.

The corridor lay silent and dark, nobody was to be seen except the door guards who stoically looked straight ahead and didn't care about the half-naked witcher. In front of the threshold stood a silver tray with a bottle of wine and a small, folded piece of parchment. Geralt picked up the tray, took a last look into the corridor and closed the door.

Balancing the tray on one hand, he took the parchment with the other, unfolded it and said, "A greeting from the king. Obviously, you've come a step closer to your conversation."  
"He's just being polite, Geralt."  
"If you are right in your assumption that the bandits were commissioned by him, he has no reason to do so", Geralt replied, placed the tray on the small table in front of the sofa and then looked appreciatively at the label of the bottle.  
"It's from Touissant. Could be poisoned, though" he murmured, uncorked the bottle and smelled it.

"You're exaggerating. I hardly think..."  
But Geralt already had the bottle on his lips and tipped half of it down in one go.  
"Nope, impeccable."  
"Someone should teach you some manners," Emhyr sighed.   
"That's your job", Geralt replied, finally on the right track as far as being drunk was concerned. He threw himself back on the lounge, laid his head back in Emhyr's lap, looked briefly at the bottle and then said: "Since it's from Touissant, it's meant for me, I suppose. Rude. I mean, why not two bottles? What did they think you were drinking?"  
Then he dumped down the rest, threw the bottle on the floor and closed his eyes.  
"There, that's better."

His head was rocked by Emhyr's laughter, which was light, but unmistakable - and extremely rare.   
"What's so funny?"  
"Nothing," Emhyr replied softly. "Nothing. You. Everything."  
He stroked his hair again.   
"I'm just petting my bodyguard, who is very clearly drunk. I don't think that's how it's supposed to be."   
"I'm not _that_ drunk," Geralt mumbled. "I'm still taking on anyone who comes through that door now."  
"You're being silly."  
"Then grant your bodyguard the rest of the night off, and stroke your husband if you prefer."  
"Ah, so now we get to the part where we convince the court that you are the Emperor's consort after all?"  
"Still dirty," Geralt hummed.

And then he fell asleep.

[](https://abload.de/image.php?img=awskyb.jpg)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Punishment divine". Art is by [Aki](https://twitter.com/aki4500199)! :)
> 
> I just wanted a light, silly chapter in between, before everything goes down the drain... And since we're already going cheesy I chose a song for the chapter, it has nothing to do with the title and - surprise - it's not Blind Guardian.
> 
> [Sirens, Pearl Jam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jZBwyG7HPs)


	11. And I’ll remember / Communication to you is so strange

— 10 —

**And I’ll remember / Communication to you is so strange**

Young King Mathen obviously had a different disposition than his father, who would not have allowed himself to leave the Emperor in the dark as to whether and when he intended to meet him. At least that was Emhyr's opinion, who had been pondering during the night whether he should simply _take_ Cidaris - and Geralt wasn't even sure how that had been meant.

Of course he assumed Geralt would sleep - he had, but when he wasn't under the influence of any potions and his body had not entered a healing mode, he usually woke up several times. It was pure survival instinct, a trained habit to make sure everything was safe, and it usually only lasted a short time before he fell asleep again. He wasn't nearly drunk enough that this wouldn't have worked.  
  
So while Geralt apparently slept, Emhyr had confided all kinds of things to him. He hadn't moved, he was still sitting there like before, with Geralt's head in his lap, so Geralt assumed that he had not been asleep for very long. Emhyr no longer touched him, he knew better by now. He had learned that the hard way: to startle a witcher - who knew how to use his whole body as a weapon, even when naked -in the middle of the night with a touch was simply not a good idea*. So he left his hair alone and just talked.  
  
Because he heard Emhyr speaking, he just lay still, eyes closed, and listened to him. He was neither conscious enough nor awake long enough to understand everything, but apart from a tirade about fishing - an important economic sector in Cidaris - he talked about his obvious aversion to the king and used some descriptive metaphors about what he would have liked to do to him. All these were things he would never have said, if he had believed that Geralt was awake. It was a very interesting insight, even if he couldn't follow all of it for long and at one point merely listened to Emhyr's dark, calm voice because it was _his_ voice.

In any case, a servant had appeared early in the morning with the announcement that the king would be expecting them in an hour. The late notification was also part of the game, of course.

When Geralt woke up from the knocking and the quiet conversation at the door, he wondered if the slight headache came from the wine or from the prospect of spending another day with the Emperor's protocol obligations - and with a king, who would not make it easy for him. He had no idea what kind of arguments Emhyr wanted to put forward - other than war, of course, which was a rather unlikely thought given the current size of Nilfgaard and the relevance of Cidaris. He still did not quite understand why Emhyr was so attached to the small kingdom. Maybe he was actually only interested in stable diplomatic relations. But such thoughts only aggravated Geralt’s headache.

Although he had secretly hoped that such an early meeting would be synonymous with breakfast, he was disappointed. So he sat there slightly disgruntled, dressed in some nonsense, which was apparently all the rage in Nilfgaard, and listened to the king, who showed surprise that they were not wearing _rings_. Although Emhyr, who was sitting next to him, replied to it somehow - in a polite, but sharp manner, indicating that it was better not to go into the subject - Geralt was aware that this king had never believed for a moment that the Emperor had brought him along as anything other than a witcher. And yet, of course, they continued to play the game. After a while it became clear that this was only the beginning: Of course there would be no negotiations right now, it was just banter with the aim of assessing the other side. That was probably also the reason why Triss had not been invited to this - therefore rather informal - meeting and why Mathen also didn't have a sorceress at his side. Whoever his advisor was.

Mathen, who looked astonishingly similar to his father, even if he did not resemble him in any other way, was in his stubbornness and pride a thoroughly worthy opponent for Emhyr. And even if he didn't like the king, Geralt knew that his lover somehow enjoyed this kind of play - which was clearly one of the aspects of him that Geralt couldn't quite comprehend.

Since he was not expected to take part in the conversation in any form, and because sitting around and listening to the skirmish was not helping his headache, he got up at some point and apologized that he needed some air. Out of sheer spite, he bent over to Emhyr, kissed him right on the mouth in the sight of the king (and a considerable number of servants) before he went out deliberately slow.

Although he had never been here before, he easily found his way to the palace gardens. It was still crisp cold, the proximity to the sea cooled the air even more. But even if the beginning of spring did not really show itself here yet, some of the plants were already in bloom. Geralt did not have an eye for this, especially as a quick overview showed him that the place could not be compared in the least to the palace gardens of the Duchess of Touissant. Why he even thought of it was beyond him.

As he walked slowly along the gravel paths, lined with narrow birch trees, he thought for a moment about sitting down in the middle of the short cut lawn and meditating his headache away. That would definitely be an interesting sight for the entire court. But when the path made a bend - this part of the grounds was laid out in a spiral around a row of trees and flowerbeds - he was not prepared for the sight _he_ was about to see.  
  
In this part of the garden, in the middle of the lawn, a circular patch had been created, lined with puny flowers that gathered around the same short grass as before. In essence, it was merely a circle of snowdrops and crocus, a comparatively pointless attempt at garden design. By the looks of it, someone had already had the same thought before him: because in the middle of this arrangement, somebody was sitting in an unmistakable pose. Geralt only saw the back of the person, but that was enough. Two swords.

There was a witcher sitting in the garden, meditating.

* So I prompted lovely [Glossamyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glossamyre/pseuds/Glossamyre) for that scene, in her own Emhyr/Geralt-canon of course, and look what she did ... just a lovely [smut](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23015074/chapters/58551694#workskin) :) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from "Goodbye my friend".


	12. There’s fear and anger / Hate and love / I must confess / It’s out of hand

— 11 —

**There’s fear and anger / Hate and love / I must confess / It’s out of hand**

Geralt had stopped in surprise, but of course the witcher had heard him long ago. Maybe he even smelled him, especially _him_ , because now he grabbed one of the swords - without even turning around - and slowly pulled it from the unadorned sheath on his back. Bare steel, without decoration, Geralt noticed, but made after a very special, unique design. Improved, but not to the ultimate possible. He already recognized it by the sword, but when the man stood up and slowly turned to him, it was distinctive. The medallion showed a cat's head, its teeth bared. Cat school. On top of all this, it was now clearly visible that the witcher was unmistakably an elf.  
  
His face didn't give a hint of age, as usual. And of course, the tall Aen Seidhe showed the fine, almost unearthly beautiful features of his kind. Only that this was disturbed by the ugly, poorly healed scar across his neck, which inevitably attracted the gaze.Geralt raised his hands, slowly, calmingly.

"The Rivian, from what I see," said the elf.  
"Not really", Geralt responded.   
"Well, did you change the name after the wedding? Perhaps even received a title? Maybe the _Tamed Wolf_ , Knight of Touissant."  
"Very funny. What are you doing here?"

The witcher of the cat school, who obviously didn't think it necessary to introduce himself - after all, he was the one in full armor and armed, so why should he - came closer. He held the sword loosely in his hand, but why he had drawn it at all was not clear. However - _cat school_ , Geralt thought. So why would he need a reason. It might be a bit exaggerated what was said about those witchers. But not everything. By no means everything.  
  
"So word hasn't gotten around yet?"  
The elf smiled thinly. He came closer, and Geralt wondered whether he should stay still or step back. He wondered what the guy was up to and weighed all options, just to be on the safe side. They were alone in this part of the garden. The area was, despite occasional tree plantings, relatively open, the royal castle was clearly visible from here and not far away. However, Geralt wondered if this was of much use when the elf continued speaking.

"I am the king's advisor."  
Geralt tried not to show his surprise too clearly.   
"Very funny", he repeated feebly. "Fancy idea.“  
  
However, there had to be a reason why King Mathen had a witcher in his midst - one who was so familiar with the place that he meditated undisturbed in the middle of the palace grounds. That might be pure impudence, of course, but the witcher obviously had something to do with the king. Geralt considered it highly unlikely that he really was his advisor, but on the other hand, maybe that was the reason why they hadn't found out which sorceress supported Mathen yet? Because maybe there was none at all? That would be highly unusual as well.  
  
He was an Aen Seidhe, which under other circumstances could actually have made him a valuable advisor, but it was more likely that the king relied on the witcher for protection. However, even if not all the witchers of the cat school were as crazy as they were said to be, none of them was not dangerous. But Geralt thought one thing above all: _How fucked up were Emhyr's spies?_ How was it possible that nobody had known that a witcher was prowling around the court of Cidaris? Or had he known and chosen not to tell him? Geralt rather rejected this thought. But if _that_ was the real reason why he had taken him along for his protection without telling him, the man would get into serious trouble with him.

Since the other witcher still came towards him with his sword, Geralt was forced to take a step back.  
"What are you up to?" he asked. "I'm not armed, and I'm not a threat of any kind."  
"I agree. But no reason not to have a little fun, right?"  
With these words, he made a quick movement forward, thrusting the sword in Geralt's direction.   
_Seriously?_ he thought, as he skilfully swerved to the side. It was clear that this was only meant as a playful advance - not because the elf wasn't serious, but as an actual _game_. One in which he had a clear advantage.

"What the fuck? I don't remember us having any trouble", said Geralt, who slowly started to get furious. It was by far not the first time he was attacked by another witcher, not even by one of the cat school. However, he saw no reason for it. Maybe the other one just wanted to chase him across the lawn like a rabbit. But he would have a long time waiting for that.

The next advance came from the side, Geralt could simply roll it off. He thought about reaching for his dagger for a moment - he might not be allowed to take his swords to the negotiations and meetings, but he wouldn't appear completely unarmed, as long as he was responsible for the Emperor's security. The dagger was attached to his hip under his clothes, and since the current Nilfgaard fashion did not provide too tight trousers, this was not a problem. However, he still didn't understand the motivation of the cat school witcher, and as long as his attacks weren't really aimed at hurting him, he had no intention of starting the bloodshed.  
  
But he could not be completely sure that the other witcher would not start with it after all. Especially when the next attack was aimed pretty high. Geralt jumped back, landed on the gravel path, bent down and hurled a load of the little stones in the other one's face. The elf threw his head back and laughed without any humor. Geralt was finally fed up.

He took a step in the direction of the elf, ducked under the expected advance and jumped in a flowing turn from a standing position against the legs of the other witcher. He had aimed for the knees, but did not count on the steadiness of the elf. The feline only had to slightly move his left leg backwards to find his balance again, while Geralt had to roll off after his attack and quickly come back to a standing position.

The cat school witcher used this moment and turned in Geralt's direction in a flash. One movement from the wrist, and he rammed the sword handle into his stomach. Geralt ran out of air, he writhed in pain and tried to evade the next attack. But now the elf imitated him - and kicked him violently in the back of his knees. Geralt cursed and landed in the circular flowerbed. As he tried to catch his breath again - and get the damned dagger - the elf rammed his sword deep into the grass, just a hair's breadth from Geralt's thighs.   
  
"Well, that was fun," he said. "I expected something a little different, though."  
He held out a hand to Geralt, obviously to help him up, but Geralt was so pissed off in the meantime, that he preferred to prop himself up from the ground and stand up alone.

"What the fuck was that about?" he asked irritably, about to punch the other one in the face.   
But before the elf could answer, both were distracted by an agitated servant. who had been running across the lawn and had reached them by now.   
"Sir Geralt! Excuse me!“  
"Sir Geralt, huh?" muttered the elf with amusement.   
Geralt gave him a look that would probably have turned any normal person to stone in an instant, metaphorically speaking. But the cat school witcher was not a human, even if his obvious preference for weird _games_ and odd jokes didn't seem very elvish.

"What's wrong?" Geralt snapped at the servant.   
The man was a skinny little fellow, whose Adam's apple hopped when he spoke, as if it was about to jump out of his throat. He said, "Where is your husband, sir? King Mathen awaits the Emperor in the throne room. We cannot find him, and the king has other meetings to attend. We can’t let him wait!“

"What do you mean, you can't find him. He was with the king a moment ago."  
The servant nervously blinked and fumbled with a paper he was holding in his hand. He took a look at it and said, "The conversation with the king ended ended about half an hour ago. The Emperor wanted to fetch you personally so that you could attend the next audience together..."  
"And the guards let him go alone?" Geralt snarled at the man.   
"With all due respect, the royal palace is completely safe!"  
"Well, then where is he? He can hardly have gotten lost. Someone must have seen him."  
The servant gulped.  
"We thought he was with you, sir."  
"Have you looked in our rooms?"  
"Certainly, sir."

Geralt swore inside. He'd been out here so damn long? He was a fucking lousy bodyguard. And he started to worry.  
"Get the sorceress," he told the servant. "Just to be safe. I'll find him myself."  
"I can help you," the elven witcher unexpectedly offered himself.  
Geralt turned to him.  
"No", he said coldly. "You better stay out of this."  
All of a sudden, a raven emerged from one of the scrawny birches and flew over him, cawing loudly. It seemed like a dark omen to him, as he turned towards the castle to find Emhyr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Another stranger me".


	13. Quick, cast your spell on me / I sense you’re finally getting near

— 12 —

**Quick, cast your spell on me / I sense you’re finally getting near**

The meeting ended shortly after Geralt had left - whether his impertinent kiss had anything to do with it was not clear to Emhyr, but he doubted it. However, something seemed to have motivated the King to dedicate even more time to him - for he recommended him ( _recommended, sure!_ ) to attend the audiences in the throne room and listen to the concerns of the citizens of Cidaris.  
  
The proposal was not as strange as it sounded. Mathen obviously wanted to make clear to him what to expect, when he planned to expand his empire in this direction. However, he definitely underestimated that Emhyr already knew the responsibility more than well. This not really subtle reference to the fact that a Kingdom did not govern itself only from a throne was more than unnecessary. Perhaps this was also an attempt to subliminally signal to him, that Cidaris would not be satisfied with a role as a vassal state. In this case, however, King Mathen overestimated the size and relevance of his country, and Emhyr had to think about how he could make this clear to him. In a diplomatic way. At first.  
  
They exchanged a few more short words, with which King Mathen emphasized once again that he should definitely bring his _amusing spouse_ to the audience, which would begin in half an hour. Emhyr tolerated the subliminal insult; there was no use crying over spilt milk, not after the kiss, that probably had shocked the court officials present. Protocols and etiquette had never been of interest to Geralt - of course this was a factor that was especially attractive to Emhyr, but right now it wasn't very helpful.  
  
After that, Emhyr went in search of someone who could tell him where said _husband_ had gone. He found the fact that he could move around the castle apparently unhindered quite interesting. The King didn't seem to care to give him guards at his side to accompany him - which could mean two things: One, that he wanted to demonstrate that the Emperor was safe here. There hadn't even been an opportunity to address the attacks - the subject was sensitive, and Emhyr wasn't quite sure how to approach it. So the fact that he was unaccompanied was interesting in multiple ways. Second, that the King assumed that the Emperor did not need an escort, since he had a witcher with him.   
  
It was quite complicated to think about, and although Emhyr was used to thinking at least two steps ahead, he did not quite succeed in getting behind Mathen's motives. So he focused on more obvious things. Since also no court official had been assigned to him - another interesting point - he had to find out where Geralt was in the old-fashioned way.  
  
Between all the kowtowing people, who either bowed knee-deep at the sight of him or simply fled out of the way, he found a serving girl, who claimed to have seen a "white-haired nobleman" walking towards the gardens. And a bright little boy, who obviously found his sight more interesting than frightening, confirmed the scar on the face of said man. So he made his way to the gardens, even though he could only recall roughly their location from previous visits. He hadn't even come halfway when a nervous and, measured by the standards usual here, extremely carelessly dressed servant almost ran into him. The man apologized a dozen times, bowed until his nose almost hit the ground and then hectically called out: "Your Imperial Highness! I was just on my way to look for you. We don't know what to do at all! It's horrible!"

Emhyr stared at him, extremely irritated that the guy had even addressed him at all.  
"Pull yourself together! What's the matter?"  
"Your husband, Your Highness."   
The servant could hardly breathe, that’s how upset he seemed. Emhyr was on the verge of slapping him, but they already had quite a crowd. Just what he needed: scandalous scenes while he was about to negotiate the future of this entire _fisher Kingdom_.

"What about him?"  
"He, uh... he... he's outside having a fight with the King's advisor!"  
"What?"  
"We cannot stop him!"

Emhyr thought this was just ridiculous. He didn't think it was inconceivable that Geralt, maybe out of boredom, would get into a brawl, but here and now? He just didn’t believe that the man had so little sense (or indeed such little empathy - he was actually sure that wasn't the case). So whatever was going on there, there had to be an explanation.   
"Take me there at once!" he commanded the unhappy servant, who just nodded, turned on his heel and ran ahead.  
"Not so fast, for crying out loud!" Emhyr hissed after him. He would certainly not _run_ through the castle, no matter who Geralt just knocked out his teeth (and he still hoped that this would turn out to be some strange misunderstanding).

But the servant did not seem to hear him, or maybe he didn’t want to. Emhyr began to wonder if he could reproach Geralt for his attitude at all - many here seemed to behave strangely.   
He followed the man through corridors that became emptier and emptier, until he finally couldn't see him anymore, because the man had disappeared quickly around a corner. Emhyr stopped for a moment: that was really kind of an affront. On the other hand - what had driven him to blindly follow a servant? Irritated, he looked around and realized that he didn't know exactly where he was. He peered out of the small, decorated window that was embedded in the wall of the corridor. From here, he could not see the garden, which probably meant that he was not looking to the south. There was also a window on the other side of the corridor, and his examining gaze confirmed that the garden was not visible from there either. Either this was a huge detour, or this corridor did not lead to the main hall and from there to the garden. He did not know the castle well enough to be sure that he would have found the way on his own. But this just did not seem right to him.

Emhyr suddenly became very aware that he was all alone. Alone at the place he had described to Geralt as the probable origin for the attacks - although the evidence for this was rather thin. It was more that he had wanted to believe it. Maybe just out of sheer aversion to this boy, who had sat himself on a throne that Emhyr thought was still a bit too big for him. Who had lost his father under mysterious circumstances and who was so very different from the former King. If that alone made him suspicious, Emhyr would have earned his own reputation much earlier.

He was alone, without the usual entourage of skulking protocol officers, servants, guards, his sorceress... and without his designated bodyguard. Who - and he was now certain of this - was certainly not having a brawl with anyone at the moment.   
  
He looked around attentively. The passage was and remained empty, and he stood in the middle of it, completely unprotected. Apart from the servants he had asked about Geralt, probably no one would know that he had been on his way to the gardens. But that was of no use to him anyway, since it had obviously been intended that he would never get there anyway. Emhyr thought quickly. Forward or back? Back seemed to be the best choice, because it looked like he was walking straight into a trap. So he turned around, went back in the direction he had come from. He carefully looked behind him once more. The other end of the corridor was in semi-darkness despite the bright morning, and it was completely quiet. It was no different in front of him. Maybe he was exaggerating, maybe everything was fine, and he was just paranoid from the sheer company of a witcher, who saw a threat in almost everything. However, Emhyr would not have survived so many years as Emperor of his realm if a certain caution - and even a touch of paranoia - had not been part of his nature.   
  
So he went back further and further until he almost reached the end of the corridor. He looked around, glanced back, looked forward again. He wished he had listened to Geralt, for the witcher had shown him where he was wearing his dagger and had wanted him to have one, too. He knew that the sorceress Merigold (he still couldn't bring himself to call her something else, even if he actually thought about making her his court sorceress) had got one from Geralt a long time ago and wore it. But if that was the only reason why he subconsciously blocked himself against the thought, that was pretty stupid. Well, it's never too late for such an insight, he told himself.  
  
A sudden noise made him turn around. At the window, more precisely on the outside of the narrow ledge, a bird sat and pecked at the window pane. Emhyr frowned and once again headed towards his destination - the end of the hallway.

He didn't see the blow coming, and a moment later he saw almost nothing anymore, as blood ran down his face. The strangest thing was that he didn't feel anything at all. Did he fall? Was he being pulled or pushed, or was the floor moving? Was the sound coming from the raven by the window or was it himself? Then there was, perhaps, a voice. Something was put over his mouth, and for a moment he panicked, pulled his arms up, got hold of something. The pressure increased, and then that was over, just like everything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I have stretched the non-existent reality of this story a little further, so that the Emperor of Nilfgaard can be kidnapped in a crowded castle. Just imagine it would be one of those cheap trash movies: Entertaining, but not always very logical. 
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Road of no release".


	14. Don’t you know your enemy? Don’t you know you’re damned?

— 13 —

**Don’t you know your enemy? Don’t you know you’re damned?**

The servant ran ahead, rushed across the lawn as if someone was after him, and quickly disappeared into the castle. Geralt resisted the urge to run after him, while he felt the elf's looks in his back.

When he arrived at the castle, the servant had disappeared, but he saw Triss coming down a staircase. She was dressed as if she herself had an audience with the King (which might have been the case) - she wore a tight dress in her favourite colour, with a spectacular neckline. Her hair was tied at the back of her head, a small concession to court etiquette, perhaps.

The sorceress came up to him and asked, "What's wrong? I'm late, I know, but I guess that's not why you look so grim."  
"Late?" he asked irritated.  
"For the audiences? I thought you had come to... what's wrong?"  
"I sent a servant to fetch you. Emhyr has disappeared."  
"Disappeared?"   
Triss looked around quickly. The royal household watched them, a bunch of courtiers and nobles, all too eager for a little scandal. She took his arm and led him through the hall while she continued speaking quietly.

"There was no servant with me. What happened?“  
"Did he miss you? You must have seen him. Nervous, skinny guy, running around like a maniac."  
Triss shook her head.  
"What's wrong?" she repeated urgently.  
"I don't know," he admitted. She could tell from the look on his face that he was concerned. But he was also angry when he answered.  
"Who is King Mathen's advisor?"  
"What? I have no idea. I thought I was gonna meet that person today. Why is that important?"  
"Because there's a witcher out there who claims to be the one. A cat school witcher, and that is actually pretty crazy. How the hell is it possible that nobody knew there was a witcher running around this place?"

"A feline witcher?"  
She pushed him into a quiet side corridor.  
"Where is the Emperor?"  
"I don't know", he started, and she gave him a warning look - he talked too loud, people were passing by, and they were both supposed to be somewhere else.   
A little quieter Geralt continued: "I found the witcher in the garden. That bloke thought it was funny to attack me, and then he said he was the King's advisor. Then this servant appeared, claiming that Emhyr could not be found."

"Perhaps it was all just a misunderstanding?"  
"You know he believed that the attacks came from Cidaris?"  
"Of course I know that. It seemed to be some kind of obsession with him, there isn’t even enough evidence. I don't think that the King would be so blatant… Have you searched for him yet?“  
"No," he admitted.   
"Then don't freak out yet," she said. The rude tone was reaching him more than anything else.   
"We will find him. Perhaps nothing has happened and he's already at the audience - where, by the way, I should have been by now.“

She thought for a moment.   
"We'll check your quarters first. And we'll send someone to the throne room to find out if he's there yet."  
"Doesn't sound very discreet," Geralt said with a frown.  
"I can't exactly show up there myself, Geralt. If I go there and he is there, I will have to stay - and people will wonder where you are, too. From what I hear, you've broken enough rules today, including your quarrelling with some witcher, even if word hasn't gotten around. And if he's not there, we'll only alarm the court unnecessarily."  
"The court _should_ better be alarmed if the Emperor has suddenly disappeared," he remarked.  
"I admit that the matter is a bit unusual when a servant has already told you that they are looking for the Emperor," Triss returned. "And you sent him after me?"  
Geralt nodded.   
"At least he didn't show up. Of course, it could be coincidence…"  
"…that neither of us really believe in, Triss.“  
  
They left the corridor and turned back into the main hall. Triss looked around searching and wondered who she could send to the throne room as inconspicuously as possible, when suddenly a little boy approached them. In an obvious attempt to practise chivalrous behaviour, he addressed them with a deep bow: "My lord, my lady, I could not help but overhear that you are looking for someone."  
"You were eavesdropping?" Geralt replied harsh.   
"Not at all", said the boy, while his face turned red. "I just wanted..."  
"Go on", said Triss, much more friendly.   
"I met His Imperial Highness not long ago, and he asked me if I had seen this nobleman. The one with the scar on his face. With the white hair. And I replied, yes, I did, and told him that the honorable sir had gone to the garden. I thought you might like to know, sir."  
The boy looked up at Geralt with an ingenuous look upon his face.  
"All right. Well done", Geralt growled.   
The boy was beaming.

"I have another task for you," Triss suddenly said. "And you don't even have to do it for free, look..."   
She looked around quickly. Then she bent down to the child, stretched out her hand, ran over it with the palm of her other hand - and a coin appeared.   
"This is for you," she said. "Find out if the Emperor is in the throne room by now, will you? Meet us outside his chambers afterwards. Do you know where they are?"  
"I'll find out," said the boy, took the coin and went on his way.

Geralt raised his brows.  
"Tricks of the trade?" he muttered.  
"I guess you know a few yourself," she returned. "But at least now we know he was going to the Gardens."  
“Where he never arrived. Let's go."

The guards were still standing outside the door where they belonged, and they claimed that the Emperor had not been there since the morning. Triss waited outside to intercept the boy, while Geralt went in to have a look around anyway. That was useless, of course, assuming that the guards had also mentioned any other person who might have gained access. He didn't even know what he expected to find - everything still looked the same as when they had left. Undecidedly, he went outside again, where at that moment the boy became visible, rushing through the corridors.

"He's not there," he shouted, and Triss was startled and put a finger to her lips. He understood immediately and came closer to them without another word.   
"Let's go inside for a moment," Triss said, ignoring the irritated looks of the guards as she pushed Geralt and the child into the chambers.   
Triss closed the door and asked, "The Emperor is not in the throne room?"  
"No," said the boy. "I only got a quick peek, they wouldn't let me in and I had to duck away under the guards. They caught me right away, but I could look around inside. His Imperial Highness is not there, for sure. You can't miss him."  
_Certainly not,_ Geralt thought.

"I came back as fast as I could" the boy continued. "And on my way, a man came up to me and gave me this for you, sir.“  
He handed Geralt a folded piece of parchment. It looked old and even torn in places.  
Geralt unfolded it. His face hardened.  
"What did he look like? The man who gave this to you." he asked in a tense voice.   
The boy thought for a moment.   
"Strange," he answered. "He didn't seem to fit into the livery. And he had a funny mark on his wrist."  
"You have a good perception," Triss praised him, while she looked at Geralt with concern.

"What is that?" she then asked.  
Geralt turned the paper so that Triss and the boy couldn't see what was written on it, and then faced the child.   
"You've done a good job," he addressed him. "You should go back, they probably miss you already."  
"Nobody misses me," the boy said cheerfully. "They are glad if they don't see me talking to knights and nobles."  
"This time it was good that you did," Triss replied, opening the door and waving at him as he left. Then she quickly closed the door again.  
"What is this?" she repeated.   
Geralt turned the parchment over again and showed it to her wordlessly.

It was an old map, on which apparently a certain place was marked. But the most remarkable thing about it was the bloody handprint in the middle of the map.

\----------------------------------------

Hey :) I received fan art for this fic by [@deagle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deagle/pseuds/deagle). Here's the helpful little boy Geralt and Triss meet ... Isn't he cute?

[](https://share-your-photo.com/1dab6b6b99)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from "The throne".


	15. Don’t mind the blood here / Welcome to the slaughterhouse

— 14 —

**Don’t mind the blood here / Welcome to the slaughterhouse**

"You don't believe..."   
" _Believing_ won't be enough here," Geralt replied edgy. He sniffed the parchment.   
"Still quite fresh. But I can't tell for sure if that's his blood.“  
"Where does the mark point to?" Triss asked.   
  
Geralt looked closely at the paper.  
"Elven ruins, I'd say. At least ... if this is supposed to be the city", he pointed to a spot on the map, which was completely unlabelled, “then this is the border to Kerack. In between, there are actually remains of an ancient settlement of elves."  
"You know the place?"  
Geralt nodded.  
"In places like this, there’s always ghosts. But since usually nobody really feels responsible for elven ruins, it is hard to find someone who will pay for getting rid of them. You learn that the hard way.“  
  
The sorceress looked thoughtfully at the piece of parchment.   
"It's a bit dramatic," she said.   
"Or _playful_ ," Geralt replied. "Funny little game - find the Emperor, walk right into my little trap."  
His sarcasm couldn't quite hide the fact that he sounded worried.   
"You're thinking of the unknown sorceress."  
"Of course. And I also think our _friend,_ the King has something to do with it. I just don't know what yet."  
"I told you, we couldn't find any actual evidence that the attacks originated here."  
"Emhyr disappeared in the middle of _this_ castle. Someone in _this_ castle passed on this map to me. Either Mathen knows something about it, or he just has to help us figure something out.  
I cannot imagine that he really wants to be known as the King in whose Kingdom the Emperor disappeared, while he wanted to negotiate with him. Not if he knows that Emhyr has a successor with an army that could be at his doorstep in no time.“

"Certainly not", Triss acknowledged.   
"What are you doing?" she then asked confused, because Geralt had started to undress. He walked around the room in those ridiculous Nilfgaardian trousers, meanwhile wearing only the medallion on his upper body, and answered: "I will definetely not approach the King as the Emperor's _consort_."  
Triss realized that he was gathering his armor.   
"I don't know if that's such a good idea. Let me..."  
"Why should he listen to you any more?"   
"Geralt, you're not exactly the greatest diplomat."  
By then he had almost changed his clothes. Triss wandered around the room slightly nervous, grabbing his swords and handing them to him.

"There's no need for a diplomat here either," he replied while putting on his boots, and then he took the swords from her.  
"I do believe there is. You could destroy more than you know. The Emperor has worked long and hard for these negotiations."  
"I know nothing of this. But I don't suppose it matters now, if he's not even here to negotiate."  
"All right, but I'm going with you to smooth things over. Promise me you won't come crashing in and accuse the King."  
"We'll see," he replied reservedly and was already on his way to the door.

Triss almost had trouble keeping up with him as he made his way to the throne room. It was quite a sensational appearance, although some of those present must have been used to the presence of a witcher - if any of what the feline had said in the garden was true. Nevertheless, most of the men and women stepped aside in dismay as he walked through the corridors. He beckoned one of the uniformed servants to approach and let him explain the way to the throne room.

When they arrived there, the guards immediately blocked their way.   
"The King is in the midst of his audiences," one of them declared. "You cannot enter now."  
"We are invited to these audiences as well," Triss replied.   
"I very much doubt that."  
Triss looked sternly at the guards.

"You refuse to let in the husband and the court sorceress of His Imperial Majesty Emhyr var Emreis, Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd, Emperor of Nilfgaard, King of..."  
"Save the full title," growled Geralt, for whom all this had lasted long enough.   
He bent the fingers of his right hand for a sign, moved the hand towards the men and said, "You will let us pass now."  
The men looked at each other in confusion, but they gave way.   
"How long will this work?" Triss asked as he pushed open the double doors to the throne room.   
„Not very long. Come."

But he had not expected guards on the other side of the door - a stupid mistake. No sooner had they entered the throne room than they had not only attracted all eyes, but also the attention of those guards.  
"Geralt," Triss warned him. "Don't do anything rash now."  
But that wasn't what he had in mind. The guards reached for him, but left Triss alone - first, she was an unarmed woman, second, a sorceress, that much had apparently gotten around.   
  
"What is the meaning of this?" King Matthew let himself be heard.  
He sat prominently on his throne at the other end of the hall, while there was still a respectable number of expectant citizens waiting to be heard by him. The room was also well filled with the usual spectators, court officials and other servants. Behind the King, there were more guards, but Geralt didn't intend to start a fight here.   
  
"I'd hate to get in line," he said calmly. "And I think we should discuss something that's better left out of the audience."  
The King laughed softly.   
"I guess now the cat has turned back into a wolf."  
If he thought Geralt was offended by the insult, he had misjudged.   
"I can also ask you in public: Where is the Emperor?"

King Mathen leant forward and stared at him.   
"Why, have you lost sight of your husband - whom, by the way, I expected at this audience - and now you want to know from _me_ where he is? And you have to ask me that question while dressed for a fight?“  
"You better wish that nothing is actually _lost_ here", Geralt replied.   
The King frowned.   
"If I were you, I'd be careful what you say in the court of Cidaris."  
„And once again, I advise you to stop these audiences. I want to know where the Emperor is, and I'm sure you can tell me something about it."  
"Geralt!" Triss hissed in a clenched voice.  
"Is this some kind of accusation?" King Mathen asked, dangerously calm.   
"We only have reason to believe..." Triss started carefully, but Geralt raised his hand to stop her.

"Someone in this castle gave me this," he said, shaking off the guards' hands and presenting the map with the bloody handprint.   
A murmur went through the court.  
Geralt took a step forward, but was again held back by the guards, who reached for his arms once more. He shook them off again and stepped further forward.   
The King made a gesture, and one of the guards behind his throne anteceded and pointed a crossbow at Geralt.

"This is a most outrageous behavior," said the King, now visibly annoyed.   
"So you are telling me you know nothing about this?"  
Mathen now stood up and said aloud, "I don't quite know what you are getting at, but it sounds to me like you are accusing me of something. I will not tolerate this in _my_ castle. In _my Kingdom_. You can cool off in a cell, and I would suggest you think twice about it there. Guards!“

The two men next to Geralt reached for him again. The King whispered something to the watchman with the crossbow, and he nodded briefly and then disappeared through a side door. Geralt knew better than to protest right now and hardly resisted, while the guards pulled his hands behind his back, put him in restraints and led him out of the room. The look Triss gave him was above all angry: Now she was supposed to pick up the pieces, thanks a lot.  
  
The witcher, led away by the royal guards, was another spectacular sight at the court of Cidaris. On the way the guy with the crossbow came across them again, grinning suggestively. But Geralt was too pissed off to think about it - among other things, mostly because he had actually believed to have better control over himself. It might well have been possible to ask the King for help, or to meet him more discreetly, instead of making a scene in front of the entire court and telling him to his face that he distrusted him.  
  
It was a fucking pattern of his fucking life as a witcher, who according to the people had no emotions - and yet they were constantly getting in his way. And he apparently still hadn't learned that he had to control these feelings better, especially when it came to Emhyr. After all, there were so many things that were absolutely annoying about the fact that he loved the damned emperor of all people. Who, generally speking, got along fine without him.

Well, most of the time, just not now. And now Geralt was a good deal further away from finding out what had happened. And he had probably wasted time, might have put Emhyr in even more danger. Whoever had managed to catch the Emperor in the middle of the royal castle, he was definitely on his way to the marked position on the map. Of course he might have been there by now, if magic was involved. But Geralt might just as well have caught him in time if he had followed the trail immediately instead of blindly asking the King for information. Which had earned him nothing more than to be sent to prison once again.

But that wasn't all, of course, as he was soon to find out - even if he had expected it. Royal court or not, deep down in the cells of the castle, etiquette and rules were not very much observed. And it was always that way, actually. Although it began quite harmlessly: first they took away his swords, then they loosened his shackles and made him take off his breastplate and his boots. It was part of the game - it might have been more fun to beat up a bound witcher, but not in full armor. That they untied him was riskier, but it was also part of the thrill. Still in the middle of the movement, the first kick was given. Surprised, he almost went down, but caught himself just in time.

"Little extra treatment, boys," the man in charge of the keys said to the guards who had led him down here. They just grinned.

Geralt already had an idea of this _extra treatment_ , as it was the same in almost every prison, once they got their hands on a witcher. He had no doubt that this time the King had ordered it, even if only to remind him of the rules of the game.  
They tried to push him into one of the empty cells. Apparently, there were no other prisoners and therefore no witnesses. But he could still play along: Before the next guard could land a blow, he blocked it with his forearm and punched him in the pit of his stomach. Which was not a very good idea, since the guards wore chain armour.

Still, Geralt resisted as long as he could, as long as he managed to unload his frustration on them. He broke one of them's nose and made sure that the jailer would notice his spleen in the next days very clearly. All in all it was of course not a very good plan, because it only heated the guys up even more. So they called for backup. He might hurt them for a while, but they would hurt him much longer. But at some point he did not care anymore. He had been a shitty bodyguard. He had probably been an even shittier fake-husband, at least if it was the duty of the imperial consort to behave diplomatically. And even if he didn't feel like going ahead with this game, he could at least have made an effort not to upset the King so much.

So he didn't care that the blokes were taking advantage of him. Eventually, he just held his arms in front of his face and let it wash over him. If pain and remorse was his punishment, then it was right.He felt them aiming at his head despite everything, after they had almost beaten his guts around, and he felt something cracking and breaking somewhere, but he still didn't care. They continued until he felt almost nothing, they kept on kicking him when he was already lying on the floor spitting blood, and he still wasn't unconscious because it just wasn't that easy. And if he himself had believed that some punch, some kick would make that fucked-up day just disappear, he was wrong. He came close to the darkness, but never close enough. And just before, they let go of him, just left him there, alone with the pain and remorse. And there was enough of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't have too much pity for poor Geralt, because he has only himself to blame. But if you absolutely have to pity him, you can use this old song to accompany yourself musically as he rots in his cell for a while until the author redeems him (whenever she likes)
> 
> [Eddie Vedder, Trouble (Cat Stevens Cover)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pAJ-LdzVXg)
> 
> Alternative: [The day that never comes, Metallica](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkNfNR1WYMY)
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Under the ice".


	16. What if it’s all done in vain?

— 15 —

**What if it’s all done in vain?**

How much time had passed? It was hard to grasp in his condition, and he didn't really care.  
He might have spent hours there, curled up on the floor, exhaling shallow breaths, eyes closed; in an almost meditative state - almost, because it did not bring the peace he was used to. Neither did the pain, and after exploring every aspect of that torment for some time, he realized what an idiot he was. This insight was not new, and it didn’t help very much. And then, at some point, Triss was there, scolding him. There was some pretty juicy ranting and raving, too.  
  
Geralt didn't understand half of it, he just wondered when the once so sweet sorceress had become this tangible and sometimes even cynical woman. This was probably also a point on his list of things he had done all wrong. But she quickly made him realize that he might as well stick his self-pity up his ass.  
  
"Was that really necessary?" she asked at some point, while she continued to heal his worst injuries right there in the cell. Judging by her tone, she did not expect an answer, and she did not get one.   
"It will heal," he said, almost defiantly.  
"Don't be so imbecile", Triss snapped at him. "Your cheekbone's broken, you dumbass. And how long do you want to wait until your liver rupture disappears, huh? Ah, don't say anything. Hold still while I fix your stupid face. Don't even start about your potions. This is faster, and I need you to be clear-headed."  
  
After a while she took her hand off his face and said, "That's enough. You can take something for the rest of it if you want, but the worst is over."  
Then she watched him searchingly as he sat up carefully, stretching his arms and legs, with a look on his face that could be anything between shame and suppressed anger. But most of all it probably was, still, remorse.

In a much more conciliatory tone, she now said, "I can't believe you're still so silly when you're in love.“  
"A bit rash at best," he muttered.  
"Oh?" Triss tilted her head and looked at him mischievously. "The mighty Geralt of Rivia now admits he may have done something wrong?“  
"I admit nothing," he growled and stood up cautiously. As much in one piece as it was possible - a little Swallow wouldn't hurt anyway. But there were more important things. 

"What are you even doing here?" he asked. The cell door was open, no one was watching outside, not even the jailer. "Don't tell me you were planning an escape. Any more rule-breaking, and all the King's officials heads will explode."  
"Not only theirs. Remember this one official we brought along, who is apparently responsible for ensuring that the entire environment of the Emperor adheres to etiquette? He would insist on being the first to burst," she replied giggling.

There she was for a moment, the former Triss. A person you could fall in love with without any magic. He didn't overestimate his influence to the point of fearing he'd taken that away from her.   
"No," she said, back to serious. "They found the body of a servant. By your description, it was the one you sent after me."  
"Why would anyone kill a servant?"  
"Perhaps so he wouldn't reach me in the first place."  
"Hm. You think he would have got in someone else's way?"  
Triss nodded.

"Maybe someone intended to kidnap me as well, but the rooms are all guarded. The only chance would have been if I was on my way to someplace else. If anyone noticed that the servant was coming to fetch me, it would have been a good opportunity to take his place."  
"But you were expected at the audience."  
"Yes, but I received this message at very short notice. Why do you think I was so late? I had to get dressed properly first. I suppose few people knew that I was expected in the throne room."  
"But how could anyone have known I would send a servant after you? It seems like a very crude plan."  
"No, it seems like a completely _crazy_ plan," Triss replied. "Which someone may have come up with spontaneously, because they overheard what you told the servant to do."  
Geralt pulled a wry face.  
"This is totally crazy. Besides - the only person who actually noticed was that cat school witcher."

"Well, I really had nothing to do with that," the very same witcher was suddenly heard to say. He just showed up at the cell door all of a sudden, his face as cocky as before, his mouth twisted into a false, mocking smile.    
"I told you to wait outside," Triss said angrily.   
"I did! Haven't expected you to fool around for so long."  
Geralt crossed his arms in front of his chest and said, dangerously calm:  
"Would someone explain this to me?" 

"Oh," said the feline witcher, "I assume this is yours."  
With these words he threw the leather breastplate to Geralt.   
"The swords are not bad."  
Triss took the swords from him before Geralt could say anything. Then she explained: "By now, the King is convinced that something must have happened to the Emperor."  
"Corpses are pretty convincing," the elf responded.

Triss gave him a cold look.   
"So he's willing to join the search. He provides us with a delegation of his army and is also prepared to subordinate it to the imperial soldiers - under your leadership, Geralt."  
"What?"   
"That was my reaction too", the other witcher interfered.

"As the imperial consort, you are basically his substitute at the moment," Triss explained.  
"Then this nonsense should perhaps have an end now", Geralt growled.   
"That's what I said, but the King is convinced that people in the south simply have different habits," the elf interfered again. "He said he found the kiss quite convincing and that the rumours must be true, whatever that means. Did you seriously kiss the Emperor?"  
"Can you shut the fuck up?" 

But it was clear to Geralt, that he was now very much involved in this affair: at this point, he could hardly admit that he wasn't actually married to Emhyr. For if he had had to explain why they had claimed this, it would be tantamount to admitting that the Emperor distrusted the King. And if the feline was referring to rumours, it must mean that their relationship was already making the rounds. Everyone in the palace knew about it, of course - you can't be very discreet with guards outside the door that hear you scream - , and in Corvo Bianco, too, and that was probably more than enough to spread the word everywhere. Geralt had no idea what to think about it. But even if the King did not believe that they were actually married, he was willing to play the game because of the circumstances. Anything else would have been embarrassing - and embarrassment was not something any royal court would like to have.

He turned to Triss.   
"You still haven't told me what he's doing here."  
"He's coming too. For added security, according to the King."  
"For added... what the fuck?"  
Geralt was seriously pissed off now. He dropped the armor and tore one of the swords out of Triss' hand, without even looking at it, and aimed it at the elf.  
"We can continue our little _conversation_ from before under equal conditions now."  
The other remained unmoved.  
"Fine, but first of all, that was a few hours ago. And I thought this was about finding your _husband_.“

"Can you please adjourn this pissing contest?"  
Triss sighed and put a hand on Geralt's arm to make him put the sword down again.   
"I don't like this any more than you do, but from the looks of it, he is indeed the royal advisor."  
"Adan. _He_ has a name," said the elf, almost offended.  
"I don't give a damn what your name is," Geralt replied sullenly. "And I don't need an escort from a _cat school witcher_."  
The elf didn't seem to be bothered by the contempt in Geralt's voice when he uttered this. He was probably as used to it as any witcher was to any other kind of insult - somehow, that was part of the job.

"I know the elven ruins you want to go to," Adan said.   
"Guess what? I know them myself."  
Adan grinned, but like before, his smile was not humorous despite all the mockery.  
"I have heard about that. It's been a few decades, hasn't it? Somebody cleaned up in there, but not thoroughly enough. I had to break a curse on it a few weeks ago. And guess what? I actually got paid for it."  
  
Geralt bit his tongue. It was really pointless to respond to that.  
"I've been here ever since", the elf continued. "You don't turn down such a generous offer, and so far it's been easy work. And before you get your panties in a wad, this advisor business is only temporary. The King expects a mage every day."  
"What mage?" Triss asked.  
"I'm not curious."  
Which meant he simply didn't know - and that in turn meant there couldn't be too much to this counsellor position. 

"I'm more interested in a certain sorceress," Geralt said. "If she's really there, she'll probably expect us to show up with soldiers."  
"That worries me a little," Triss admitted. "If it was her who started all those attacks, and not King Mathen, she could be waiting for us there with her own little army.“  
She was obviously thinking about the tattooed guys who carried out the last attack. They could just as easily simply be some kind of hansa, but why with that druid marking? For all they knew - even if it wasn't much - the sorceress might actually be able to build up a shadow army of compliant bandits or some other type of scum.

"What attacks?" the feline witcher wanted to know.  
"Attacks on the imperial palace," Triss replied seriously. "The Emperor had reason to believe King Mathen was involved."  
"The man is damn stubborn and proud, but not deceitful," Adan replied.   
"He certainly wasn't very diplomatic when he set his thugs on me," Geralt growled. 

Adan shrugged.  
"First of all, the trip to jail was your own fault. And secondly, I don't believe he did that. The guys here like to do that with new prisoners. They don't come around that often. Did you get beat up for fun or what? You know how it works in those prisons - royalty or not. Some things are hidden even from the royals, or they don't care."  
"He sent one of his guards out of the room as soon as I was taken away."  
Adan smirked.  
"Oh, him? Yeah, he sent that guy to me. He was supposed to tell me to come and see you later and talk some sense into you. I refused. Not in the job description.“

Geralt was seriously confused in the meantime. He didn't believe the other witcher, but he had nothing on him to prove the opposite. And they actually had more pressing problems.

"If we assume that any of this is true and she actually expects us at the place on the map, then that means that Emhyr is still alive. We should hurry, though."  
"Surely you don't think she would go so far as to kill the Emperor?"  
"In any case, she is quite ruthless," he replied curtly, and he really didn't need to remind Triss of that. They had lost a young and talented sorceress because of it. And Geralt certainly did not want to rely on her sparing Emhyr for any reason. Whoever she was, she was clearly insane, but she was also extremely dangerous. 

"Who are we talking about here?" Adan asked.  
"A greater threat than you can imagine," Geralt replied.   
"Then it's all the better if two witchers show up there," Adan said.   
Geralt gritted his teeth, but he didn't comment on it.

"We should leave as soon as possible," he said. "I'll get my stuff and we'll get out of here.“  
"You should get dressed first," Triss replied.  
Geralt blinked, looking down at himself and then at the armour at his feet. Walking through the royal court naked and bloodstained would probably add the crowning touch to all of this.

"I probably should.“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, who wouldn't want some crazy feline witcher as company, if you're going after a crazy sorceress? Sounds legit to me. 
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "At the edge of time".


	17. A strange voice whispers in my ears / You’re the rat in the trap

— 16 —

**A strange voice whispers in my ears / You’re the rat in the trap**

How much time had passed? It was hard to grasp in his condition, and he didn't really care.  
Far back in his mind, Emhyr knew that he had been sedated, drugged, perhaps even enchanted. But that was all right, everything was just all right. Sometime, somewhere, he had noticed a knife cutting into his palm, and then someone took his hand and pressed it onto something. That was all right too, it didn't even hurt. What followed was a strange, confused succession of things that he couldn't even sort out.  
  
There were strange noises, almost like water hitting hot stones, a sizzling of some sort. Something was pulling him, or someone, or maybe both: someone was dragging him _through_ something that exerted a kind of eerie suction. Only it didn't seem eerie at all. Then then there was nothing for a long time, except that he had the feeling that he was dreaming. Geralt was there, his eyes glowing, his hair as wild as it always was when he slept with him, because he liked him that way. Even if somehow the dream was more of a hint, he enjoyed it, because he just _loved_ that man, even in a dream.  
  
He came to with a smile and with a more alert mind, and that is why he did not open his eyes when he heard voices. The dream was truly over.

"I almost didn't think you could do it," said a voice. A woman. Emhyr felt he had heard that voice before. Not that long ago. At the same time, it was like he knew the voice from much earlier. From the past. But it could still be the aftereffects of the drugs, or whatever they had done to him.  
"It wasn't easy," a second voice replied. A man. He had definitely never heard this voice before.

As his mind became clearer, he realized - at least partially - what had happened. A trap he had quite willingly fallen into. A kidnapping in the middle of the royal court of Cidaris. Daring, but apparently not impossible. Because he'd been distracted by pretty much the only thing that really had the potential. The only _person_ that had. The one person he trusted most to find him here, wherever he was right now. But if he was in the hands of the sorceress who had fooled them a few weeks before, this was just another round of a dangerous game.  
  
"I'm sure it wasn't easy," said the female voice, almost purring. Yes, he knew the voice. It was stored somewhere in the back of his head. He just had to concentrate better.   
"But you have to understand that this is also a reason why no one must ever know who did this. Or who ordered it."  
"Discretion is a point of honor in my business," the man's voice replied, calmly.  
Emhyr found the serenity of the man strange. In his opinion, he had better be afraid.  
  
"I’m sure of that,“ the woman replied. And then there were noises, a strange hissing ( _squishing?_ ), and something like an exhalation of air that sounded almost surprised ( _by the man?_ ). A gargle. A kind of squirt. He didn't really want to know. Then a new sound: Something fell to the ground, fell near Emhyr. He didn't have to open his eyes to know that a body was lying beside him.

"You don't have to pretend to be asleep now, my dear," said the woman. The sorceress, he corrected himself. For who else could it be? She spoke very gently, almost friendly. But he did not want to open his eyes.

Then he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw: there was by no means a _body_ lying beside him. The body lay a little further away. Next to him was only the _head_ \- that of a man with eyes wide open.

And there, above him, she stood. Now it was Emhyr’s turn to open his eyes wide.  
"That's impossible", he said.  
And the woman laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did he just have some sort of erotic dream there? Inappropriate. Oh, and any guesses on the sorceress?  
> Chapter title is a line from "Follow the blind".


	18. Do you think / What you have done was clever?

**— 17 —  
**  
**Do you think / What you have done was clever?**

"I don't know, but that witcher gives me the creeps," Triss said.   
Geralt glanced at her.  
"It wasn't my idea for him to come along."  
"It wasn't mine either," she defended herself. "But one of us had to at least try to maintain diplomatic relations."  
Geralt decided that he would better not answer to that.

They were on their way to the elven ruins, the marked point on the map, with certainty to run into a trap - or at least to experience some kind of surprise. But since it was their only lead, there was no alternative. If the sorceress wanted to mark her territory this way, fine. Ruin a country, start a war, a personal vendetta - whatever her motives were. Geralt still had the feeling that they missed something essential, that they made some mistake, but what was that exactly? Everything was so uncertain, since this was all about playing games, doing tricks, being thrown off the scent.  
  
Actually it didn't matter to him that much, what it was about or what her motives were. She had already messed with him once, and he was fed up. She had cursed him to bled him dry. She was responsible for the fact that another vampire had managed to gain control over Regis - who had been hiding somewhere since then and was probably buried in guilt, just like Geralt, who still felt miserable when he thought about Mikaela. The sorceress had _killed_ her, had everyone around him put to danger. She had threatened Emhyr for whatever reasons. And now she had captured him, probably hurt him. Geralt would hurt _her_ for that, one way or another.

He rode ahead of the soldiers with Triss, Adan had fallen back a bit. Behind them followed a retinue of the Emperor's soldiers and those of the Cidarian royal court. Geralt had no idea how the latter were doing, but it was obvious that the commander in charge of the Nilfgaardians did not like the idea of taking orders from a witcher. Well, Geralt didn’t like it either.  
  
"Is it true what they say about the cat school?" Triss asked now.   
Geralt shrugged, but she saw that he tightened the reins a bit more.   
"There' s not much information about it, actually," he replied. "It is true that there are obviously a lot of hired killers among them. Psychopaths, in part, if you will. Perhaps some of it is exaggerated. The massacre at Iello is not ...and some other things. They're dangerous. Insane."  
"I don't trust him, but he doesn't seem _insane_ to me," Triss pointed out.  
"He attacked me - _for fun_ \- when I was unarmed."  
"Men's games," the sorceress replied unmoved.   
"Well, I guess he has no one else to play with", Geralt said with a nasty undertone. "There aren't many of those left either."

After a short time of silence he suddenly said, much to Triss’ surprise: "To be honest, he somehow reminds me of Lambert."  
Triss frowned and shook her head.   
"As for the sarcasm, maybe. And I admit, Lambert behaved rather erratically in Aretuza. It was frightening."  
Geralt had been told this story later: How Lambert had dragged two aspiring sorceresses by the hair and even threatened to destroy the entire academy. That was actually pretty close to _crazy_.

"But," Triss continued, "unlike Lambert, this witcher has no sense of humor at all. Not only does he seem unpredictable, it seems to me that he could be unscrupulous, if he had to be. Without feeling anything."  
"I think you exaggerate", Geralt said. Even though he could not deny that his previous experiences with feline witchers had never been very pleasant. And of course he did not trust him either. He wondered whether he should think King Mathen was an eccentric or a fool, because he was dealing with a witcher like this. Especially because he was so keen on rules. What kind of royal court was it in which a kiss was more scandalous than the fact that a - presumably - nefarious murderer was considered to be its protector?

He looked around - Adan was now the rearguard. They had already arrived at the forest. Soon they would have to leave the horses behind, the ruins were located off the road. The perfect place for an ambush, in case somebody wanted to mess with a bunch of soldiers.   
Shortly afterwards the forest became so thick that they had to descend. They could still lead the horses a bit further, but they had to find a place for them. Ideally not so far off from the ruins, but Geralt left that decision to the commander.   
  
Soon they approached the ancient elven place. Little by little, the remains became visible, although at first only to those who were alert enough to perceive the hints. The idea that someone would roam around here might seem absurd, but there were always those who didn't care about legends or possible ghosts and were looking for treasures or simply adventures. Such a person might stumble upon a stone hidden in the tall grass, which once might have been part of a wall or an archway. The closer they came to the actual ruins, the more often they might see the completely overgrown remains of wallsthat might have once been part of a garden, a meeting place or something similar.  
  
At this point the forest was very dense. Although the vegetation had not yet quite reached the lushness that spring would bring, there was more shade than sunny spots. A gentle breeze moved the branches and the grass. Apart from the occasional, distant hammering of a woodpecker - apparently the only bird far and wide - it was exceptionally quiet. It was exactly the kind of calmness that you had to expect when you were expected, Geralt found. As he walked ahead a bit, followed by Triss and a troop of soldiers that seemed to be abundantly cobbled together, he was especially attentive to the almost completely missing sounds of the forest.   
  
But just because they were missing - all the usual rustling in the undergrowth, the scraping, pecking and digging - his senses were sharpened for the kind of sounds one wouldn't expect to hear in the forest. He drew a sword, a precaution that briefly put the soldiers behind him out of step. The commander said nothing, he just gave them a short wave of his hand to let them know to keep going. Triss also remained silent. She didn't even seem nervous, he noticed when he gave her a quick sideways glance. That was good, because he had as much confidence in her abilities as she apparently had in the fact that he seemed to know what he was doing.  
  
And his instincts hadn't misled him. All of a sudden he turned around, roared at the soldiers: „Shield wall!" and didn't wait to see if the commander would pass on his order (which he did - he might not be happy about being commanded by a witcher, but when that same witcher started to roar, it was better to do what he said). Geralt threw Triss to the ground to protect them both with a quick casting of _Quen_.

At that very moment a true phalanx of arrows flew towards them from the north. They were far from enough to cause any major damage among the soldiers, but they would definitely have hit some of them. The arrows did not reach further than the first row of soldiers, which were effectevily protected by their shields, but the unexpected attack was enough to make the horses go crazy. They were still a bit away from the actual ruins and had not yet found a suitable place for them. Half of the front horses bolted, at least one was hit. Geralt just hoped that Roach would not be affected by the hysteria of the other horses, but at least it was easy to catch her again.  
  
When his shield had dissolved, Geralt stood up quickly and helped Triss up.  
"With a little more warning, I could have done something as well," she complained.  
"I'll tell the archers next time," he growled.

Geralt looked around for the other witcher. He stood unmoved a few steps away, at the back end of the formation that hadn't dissolved yet - although the commander looked at Geralt questioningly, because he had already risen again. Usually, such an attack was no single event.  
  
Adan had come closer now, sword in hand, and said, "How many?"  
"A dozen, probably more," Geralt replied.   
"Shall we go around?" the feline witcher asked.  
"You take the left, I'll take the right. Triss, you stay with the soldiers, in case those guys break through from the front."  
The sorceress nodded.   
"And if they try that again, they will get the same thing back," she replied resolutely.

"We'll have a look around first", Geralt said to Adan. „So don't pounce on them right away, understand?“  
"All right", the feline replied to his surprise. He had expected protest or some stupid remarks. But instead Adan pointed to the soldiers and said, though not without sarcastic undertone: "Not a bad lead at all - they parried immediately. That's more in line with the rumours I've been hearing."  
Without waiting for an answer - Geralt wouldn't have had one anyway - he turned to the left and disappeared in the undergrowth.   
"My goodness, he's so annoying," Triss murmured and left to take her position.  
"You don't have to tell me," Geralt returned.

He also made his way into the bushes, took a small turn in the direction where he suspected the attackers, only to meet Adan again some time later in a small clearing.  
"They are already gone", the other witcher said, redundantly.   
Geralt let himself down on one knee and examined the traces.  
"Further north", he said quietly.

"Of course", Adan remarked. „They’re waiting for us in the ruins. Home field advantage - it's gonna be tight in there, and of the bunch behind us, you and I are the only ones who've been inside.“  
"Enough places to hide," Geralt muttered.  
"Which probably means there aren't that many of them," Adan said.   
"Possibly, but why take the risk of messing with well-equipped soldiers?"

Adan shrugged.  
"Maybe they are just the vanguard. How far have you come in these ruins?"  
Geralt thought about it.  
"Some parts were buried. I don't know, is there anything else?"  
"Maybe, maybe not. There might be a second exit - wouldn't be unusual anyway. If they've uncovered it and they're just luring us in..."  
"...to end up with a bigger force waiting for us. Yes, maybe", Geralt replied. "But we have no choice. We will take the bait.“  
  
Adan looked at him thoughtfully.  
"I kind of understand the huge problem, if the Emperor of Nilfgaard was to go belly-up. I couldn't care less, but it puzzles me a little, you know? We have no idea what's waiting for us, and you want to lead a battery of not even a hundred soldiers in there. This is probably a trap. The Emperor could be dead by now, and you could be next. I mean, it wouldn't be a bad plan if that weird sorceress you're talking about was actually after you. I might have done it like this, if I were her.“  
"Then let's hope I never walk into one of _your_ traps," Geralt replied in a rude tone. "You might not like that. And yes, I have no idea who she is or what she wants. But we don't have time to raise a whole army now. I want him back alive."  
"Wow, so there's really something going on between you two? That's a crazy story. Wait, that sorceress is probably an old flame of yours who's jealous now and..."  
"Shut the fuck up. I'll notify the commander, and we'll go in."

While Geralt went back - thinking he could feel the other man’s eyes in his back, which was probably paranoid - he thought: _As if I hadn't considered that myself_. And he had - he had already thought about whether there was someone from his past, a woman, especially a sorceress, who was capable of all this. The thought had seemed unlikely to him, even if he (which he was actually a bit ashamed of) had grown to have slight doubts about Yennefer. In the end, the whole thing was a mystery to him. And he did not want to think about it too much. He would have gone into those elven ruins all alone - which would have been absolutely insane. But if there was even a chance that Emhyr was there somewhere, then absolutely insane was all right for him. Which of course was the basic problem why he kept getting himself into trouble. He would do crazy things for his friends, and he would do insane for his love. Someone had better explain _this_ kind of mutation to him, because he certainly couldn't do it.  
  
  
Though it had been predictable, Triss wasn't too happy with the fact that the attackers had retreated into the ruins - for obvious reasons, since most destructive spells required space. Now there was a danger of harming the allies as well. And Triss didn't want to limit herself to healing spells at all: Like the witchers, she believed that they would possibly walk right into a larger ambush. One in which the unknown sorceress could eventually be found - and after all they had experienced with her so far, they would urgently need magical support then.  
  
Triss had also already racked her brains as to who it could be. But she too hadn't come to a clear conclusion. This sorceress seemed to be as powerful as she was manipulative - at least she had repeatedly used others in the past, who had served her purposes. Someone who succeeded in getting a higher vampire to do her bidding was definitely dangerous.  
  
Triss led the soldiers on, at least it looked that way, but it was hard to tell if they found it even more unbearable to follow a sorceress than a witcher. Most of them had probably never seen a sorceress in action before. Then again, a large part of them must have never been in battle. _In a real battle_ , Triss thought. The skirmishes against bandits so far may have been only a small taste of what was to follow.  
  
She was well aware of the possible consequences of a bad outcome of this whole affair. She just wondered if the other sorceress was actually so ruthless as to turn an entire empire against herself and drag it into another war, perhaps out of pure vengeance. It was the only motive that seemed logical to Triss. She had not failed to notice how the Emperor had reacted when they found the men with the triskelion tattoos. He had looked as if he was haunted by a long-buried memory. Ever since then, she had wondered what she was missing. As if she could figure it out, if only she would think about it long enough. It was like searching for a word that was on the tip of your tongue - when you finally found it, you were relieved and wondered why you hadn't figured it out faster. Triss just had the feeling that she wouldn't be relieved at all.  
  
In either case, the stakes were high. The political consequences if something happened to the Emperor - in the middle of a kingdom not yet officially part of the Empire - would be devastating. But the prospect of what Geralt would then do, or what this would do to Geralt, actually worried her more at the moment. That was a selfish thought, especially for someone who might become the head sorceress of Nilfgaard (something she was reluctant to think about). But the thought of Geralt in a suicidal vendetta didn't appeal to her either, let alone that she wanted to see his heart broken. What she had told him just a few weeks ago was true: She wanted to be his friend. Because this time it was clear that she could not win. This time, it was love without pain.  
  
  
That was the one thing Triss was not right about, because of course this love caused pain. But of a different kind: The pain of not knowing where Emhyr really was and how he was doing exactly. If he would find him in time. The pain of knowing that he would probably actually act self-destructively if it was necessary. But in fact, Geralt preferred this hurt to any other.

Besides, he preferred not to think about it, when they finally spotted the elven ruins in front of them. What was left of them, that is, because from the outside it was just a mere shadow of a once mighty culture. Only destroyed, weathered stone that nature had reclaimed. Hardly a reminder of what had once been. Only bare stone, steps leading into nothingness, testimonies of events that had sunk into the ground, of which the people around them had no idea. The actual homestead was underground, sunk into the earth hundreds of years ago, whether by earthquakes or elven magic - scholars were arguing about this since eternal times. Maybe this was just crap. But the fact was, that most of these elven remains were very well preserved, apart from a few buried parts. Inside, they expected to find winding, almost playfully laid out paths leading to rooms where attackers could hide everywhere. For the sorceress' lackeys it was an ideal place for an ambush, for the soldiers it was a single turd.  
  
They had to scout the place, find out how many were in there, take out as many of them as possible and at the same time find out ifEmhyr - and the sorceress, possibly - were there. Geralt doubted that they would get the chance to return with a larger army. So this was do or die. With a cat school witcher at his side. Who could just as well decide to stab Geralt in the back for whatever reason. Weren't those great prospects? Geralt thought that Lambert might have liked it. Oh, he would certainly complain. He would call him crazy - which he wouldn't be wrong about. But he would follow Geralt anyway. The thought didn't improve his mood.

The entrance wasn't easy to find, but the witchers knew where to look. Although Adan had been here not too long ago, what looked like an ordinary cave entrance had almost disappeared under grasses and plants again. It led into a darkness that seemed artificial and somewhat eerie in broad daylight. But dark and eerie or not, they would go in.

And so they did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's excited? Because I'm excited. For what's in that ruins, of course. I even started the game to do some research, but found out that I had left Geralt behind in his third run of "The night of the long fangs". Of course that had to be done first, and then this and that and ... oh, just live with my idea of these ruins.
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "In the underworld".


	19. A lie / And everyone dies

**— 18 —  
**  
**A lie / And everyone dies**

"Little dark in here," Adan said.

His eyes were glowing in the darkness, although - unlike Geralt's eyes -they didn't seem to differ from those of a normal person. But it was still too dark, especially for the following soldiers. Adan lit a torch with _igni_ and placed it into an empty wall mount. Further ahead, in the empty and silent corridor in front of them, there were other mounts, some of them still containing the remains of flares which might still be suitable as light sources. Nevertheless, the soldiers of course also had torches with them. The deeper they penetrated into the ruins, the darker it would become.  
  
The entrance led into a half collapsed vestibule, where the decorated floors and parts of the once richly ornamented walls were still recognizable beneath all the dust and dirt. This close to the entry, some of the plants from the outside world were on the advance, but further inside it would be different.

The path was already narrow here, but nobody was to be seen yet. Further ahead there would be several rooms and hiding places, enough possibilities to keep everyone busy with constant attacks.

It was not entirely silent: Besides the soft flickering of the torch that fought against the draft from the entrance, even the slightest steps moved small stones on the floor. Every now and then the walls cracked, as if the underground ruins still needed to settle. 

Geralt turned to the commander of the Nilfgaardians, who had entered the ruins behind them.   
"Bring two-thirds inside. One part shall stand guard outside, and a squad shall go around the outside and look for a second entrance."  
"You expect an ambush?"  
"In any case," Geralt replied grimly. "But if there's another entrance, we could give them a surprise."

The commander just nodded and disappeared to the outside again to pass on the orders. He didn't have to like the witcher to realize that he was experienced enough to make reasonable suggestions.  
  
Adan went ahead and seemed to regard it as a kind of amusement to light all the remaining torch remains on the walls - which often didn't work right away, but he didn't seem to mind. Like some kind ofpyromaniac, he lit everything that seemed halfway combustible. Geralt preferred neither to be surprised about it nor to make a remark. Some torches were burning, it was getting lighter, that was all. Geralt reckoned that deeper inside the ruins light was already burning - even if some of the attackers were hiding in the dark, they hadn't walked through here completely without light, nor would they attack a larger group of soldiers if they themselves couldn't see anything.

That someone had already passed through here was obvious: dirt, dust and stones had been moved, the tracks pointed clearly straight ahead into the now still dark parts of the corridor that branched off further ahead.

"Like breadcrumbs to a wicked witch," Adan remarked, looking at the ground. It might be a perfectly fitting comparison, considering that somewhere at the end of this trail the mysterious sorceress could be.

And it was exactly what seemed wrong with it.

"They're still the traces of a dozen at most,“ Geralt said.

In the meantime, they had reached the end of the corridor, which branched off to the right and left. On the right side it led into a large, dark room, in the middle of which a huge fire bowl hung from the ceiling. On the left was another corridor, but the traces pointed to the room.  
  
Geralt waited until the commander had caught up with them. One could tell how nervous the soldiers were, who slowly stepped into the ruins behind them. Soldiers preferred the open field, not the possibly cursed legacies of a folk that they didn't feel comfortable with anyway.

"I don't like this," the commander muttered. Geralt could not blame him for that. In the meantime, a soldier had pushed his way through the ranks of his comrades and whispered something to the commander.

While Adan tried to light up what was still flammable material in the fire bowl, the commander said quietly to Geralt: "There is no second exit."  
"Are the men sure about this?"  
"That was one of my best scouts", the Commander replied.   
Geralt cursed inwardly. It didn't make sense.

In the meantime, Adan had succeeded. The room was brighter now. It was big and very well preserved, but also completely empty. It might have been a kind of meeting place once, but like many places in many elven ruins, there was a total void here. There were no traces of abandoned furniture or even hints that someone might have lived here once. Ornaments and playful details were found on the floor and walls, as usual. But there were no niches or dark corners where someone could have hidden.  
  
The tracks led in a straight line through the room to the next, dark corridor.

"How big are these ruins?" whispered the commander to Geralt. Before he could answer, Adan interfered.  
"Further ahead, there are several collapsed rooms. It can't be far until we meet these guys" he said, without lowering his voice. He noticed Geralt's angry glance and the irritated look of the commander and casually replied, "What? They know we're coming anyway. They're expecting us.“

And basically he was right - they could hardly hope for the element of surprise after roaming around here with a horde of fully equipped soldiers who, even if they tried, would never be as quiet as the witchers.  
  
Adan looked back at Triss, who was a bit behind and about to get to them.   
"I think she's cute," he said all of a sudden.   
"What?"   
Geralt's voice could have cut rocks.  
"You know, the red hair, and then…"  
The feline made a rather obscene gesture.  
And Geralt, in the blink of an eye, came so close to him that he could feel his breath on his face.  
"You're very close to me knocking all your teeth out," he said very quietly. "But I can also just pretend that I didn't hear that."  
The other witcher did not even blink. Instead, he looked pretty pleased.  
_Stupid_ , Geralt thought. _That's exactly what he likes_.

"Don't tell me you've been involved with her before... I haven't heard a song about _that_ anyway.“  
"Wanna make sure that you don't hear anything anymore?"   
Adan waived one of his strange smiles, instead he frowned at Geralt.  
"You seem pretty stressed. She's a sorceress, for goodness sake. I guess she can take care of herself."  
Which was true, of course.   
Geralt took a step back.   
_Annoying_ wasn't even close to the right term.

Triss had now caught up with them.   
"I don't like this," she said. "It's too quiet. And these obvious traces, like..."  
"Breadcrumbs?" Adan suggested. The whimsical sparkle in his eyes did not escape her notice.   
"Breadcrumbs," she repeated slowly. Geralt had actually expected a snappish remark, or at least an eye roll, but she gave the cat school witcher an indefinable look.

"Do you smell that?" the sorceress suddenly said. "The air..."  
But it wasn't just the smell, Geralt realized. It was hardly noticeable anyway - Triss had only realized it because it was so special and because she knew it very well. The ozone-rich scent of magic.  
There was a sound, too. Very, very quiet, but not that far away.  
  
"No, no, no", Geralt said. "Fuck."  
Adan looked at him in surprise.   
"What?"  
Then he listened. And smiled - which still was not a particularly pleasant sight. It literally made him look like a cat in that flickering light.  
"Oh", he then said. "This is where it gets interesting."

 _Interesting_ was not the word Geralt would have used. When they turned the next corner, hardly any extra lighting was needed. An artificial bluish glow lit up the walls of the next chamber: A portal.  
"Well, that wasn't here last time," Adan remarked.

The cause was quickly found: On the right wall, in a small, seemingly temporary fixture, a crystal was attached, the portal's energy store. It had obviously been mounted on the wall recently.  
"Shit. Bloody shit," Geralt swore. 

The commander of the Nilfgaardians stepped behind the witchers and the sorceress and said doubtingly, "Where does this lead?"  
"There's no way of knowing," replied Triss.   
"Unless we go through," Adan said.  
"You don't want to lead several dozen men through such an uncertain magical _thing_?" the commander turned to Geralt in disbelief.  
Geralt did not answer.  
"We cannot save the Emperor without the support of the army," Triss intervened.  
"We are loyal to the Emperor," said the commander sharply. "But this is madness."  
  
"Those who are currently on guard duty outside, stay here", Geralt suddenly said. "Maybe we'll need reinforcements."  
"Or somebody to transport our corpses", Adan replied gloomily.  
"I really must protest," said the commander. "I can't possibly..."  
"You can lodge a formal complaint with the Emperor. When we have found him," Geralt declared keenly, and only a second later he suddenly stepped through the portal and disappeared.

"That stupid idiot", Triss shouted - and in the next moment, without hesitation, she disappeared in the portal as well.  
Adan grinned at the commander.   
"I don't seem to have much to say here, but I would suggest not to wait too long before sending the soldiers through."

With these words he stepped through the portal, sword at hand.

—

He had said it dozens of times before and he would say it again, even if no one listened to him, because he stepped out of the teleport alone: Geralt _hated_ portals. And that's exactly what he said quietly to himself, while he looked around quickly.

He didn't have much time for that: As soon as he stepped out of the portal and fleetingly noticed that he was on an island, a strangely vegetationless isle with a tower just in sight, he was attacked. Two brave bandits pounced on him, but it took a bit more than that to surprise a witcher. While he fended off their advances with fast parades, he noticed about a dozen men out of the corner of his eye. He suspected that there were many more in the tower, but why bother to lure the soldiers to an _island_ at all?

Shortly afterwards Triss stepped out of the portal, grasped the situation in the blink of an eye, cursed profusely - to Geralt's surprise, who couldn't figure out why-and immediately looked for a good position to retreat. Her magic needed space, and a moment of preparation. Geralt couldn't tell if she too was surprised by the rather small amount of attackers, because shortly afterwards Adan stepped out of the portal.

It soon became clear that this witcher clearly deserved his name, which in the elder speech meant "dancer". No sooner had he left the teleport than he had rolled over - it might seem a bit off-center, but obviously he had expected more archers. There were none, only these handful of guys with swords, and in no time he was among them. His movements actually resembled a dance, albeit an ill-fated one, and at that moment he indeed appeared like the ruthless slayer Triss had described and that Geralt wanted to see in him.  
  
Not that Geralt himself just thought a lot about the guys he was messing with. But if they had thought it would be easier to go for a witcher in twos, they were barking up the wrong tree. They paid for their mistake quickly with their lives.

Triss was ready to support them from behind with a spell, but it already looked as if that wasn't necessary - the soldiers came out of the portal in drops and in small groups, and they had quickly outnumbered the attackers. Geralt did not think for long, he turned towards the tower. He had the vague idea that it looked familiar to him, but he didn't really get it.  
  
"Wait!" Triss yelled behind him. He turned around and noticed that she was on her way to follow him, but was suddenly attacked by one of the last assailants. Even before she could draw her dagger - Geralt saw that she was reaching for it, she still had it, which touched him strangely - Adan's sword ended up in the bandit's back. This time, Triss didn't complain that she "could have done it alone" (which she would have). She shouted to Geralt again: "Wait! Don't go in there alone!"

He waited a moment until she was with him, and then asked, "Do you know this place?"

She gave him a confused look, until she realized that he had never seen the tower or this dead island from the outside and probably didn't even remember that he had been here before.

"Geralt, this is where Regis brought you, you and the Emperor."

Those few words meant a lot more than they actually said. They also meant: This is the place where the sorceress has been. This is the place where Mikaela died. This is where _you_ died.  
She didn't have to say all that, he understood.  
  
"You've been here before?" Adan spoke up. Geralt could hardly believe it, but the dark eyes of the feline witcher looked almost worried. And it _was_ disconcerting. Why the hell did the sorceress bring them here? It seemed perhaps fitting to return her diabolical game to the place where she had done so much harm, almost without really making an appearance herself. And in the end it was probably all about that: another turn in the game.  
  
The commander approached Geralt.   
"I hardly think there's a whole army hiding in there. Should I send my men in?"  
That was exactly what Geralt was worried about. Were the few bandits out here all that was left?   
"We'll go first," he said, looking at Adan and Triss. They just nodded.  
"There could be a powerful sorceress in there. You will follow in five minutes. Or if you hear fighting noises."

"I don't know if I like this," Adan muttered.  
"This is not the right moment to get cold feet", Geralt returned.  
"I just don't know which of us is the crazy one here," Adan said.  
But Geralt already had his hand on the door, a simple, unsecured wooden door, that was already half open anyway.

The lowest floor of the tower was windowless and dark.   
„Where have we been?" Geralt asked Triss quietly.   
She understood immediately.  
"At the top," she responded.   
"Then we'll go to the top."

All three of them had quickly realized that no further gang of bandits or any other kind of attackers were hiding in here. It was completely silent, and it was clear that no one had entered this place - at least not for some time. Triss herself had returned once more to recover Mikaela's body. Lambert had been with her, barely a day after the events in that tower. The Emperor had been furious that they wanted to go back there, and he had shown this surprisingly obviously, but he hadn't been quite himself at that point anyway. And he had no control over her or Lambert. They had taken the body, for Triss had sworn not to leave it there.  
  
That had been essentially just a quick in-and-out and was not reflected in the tracks. They were only faintly visible anyway - some time had passed and the wind had carried in sand and gravel from outside.

Even further up the stairs new dust had settled on the steps. If the sorceress was here, she must have teleported inside. But Geralt began to wonder if she actually was here. If Emhyr actually was here. But what would be the point if they weren't?   
  
All three were tense when they reached the upper floor, albeit for different reasons.  
  
Adan had no connection to this place, but, like the others, he wondered why the mysterious sorceress had chosen this tower of all places. Did _she_ have a connection to it? Apart from that, potentially powerful sorceresses were not his specialty - nor were they a topic he wanted to become an expert in.  
  
Triss did not like to be constantly reminded that a young sorceress had died in this tower - for reasons that were not even understandable, except that Mikaela might have recognized the sorceress. But maybe she hadn't needed a reason at all.

And Geralt finally thought of nothing else but that he had to find Emhyr and that he had almost no memories of ever having been here. It was all very fragmentary, and of course he didn't remember that he had died here. But there was this dark trace, faded but significantly, leading from about the middle of the corridor to the door at the other end. A trace of his own blood.  
  
He walked with determination to the end of the corridor. The door was closed.   
"Geralt," Triss said warningly.   
He looked at her and just nodded.  
He would be careful, if possible. But this time, he’d be damn ruthless too.

Geralt positioned himself on the right side of the door, Adan on the left.   
The feline barely tilted his head.   
Geralt pushed the door open jerkily, but kept his coverage.  
It remained silent. No sound was heard, no attack occurred.   
He peered into the room, finally entered it.

There was absolutely nobody in that room.  
  
Some destroyed furniture was left around, and there was also a strangely out of place looking bed with an extremely stained mattress near the window. There were more traces of blood on the floor, up to a veritable puddle of old, dried, dark blood. Elsewhere in the room there was more blood, which, even though it was just as old and dried into the floor, gave off a completely different smell, that was practically preserved in the stagnant air of the room.

But it was not the blood that interested Geralt. It was the fact that the sorceress wasn't here, that Emhyr wasn't here, and that there was something leaning against a wall that belonged to him.

There it was: his painfully missed armor, the wolf school armor, that the sorceress had taken away from him. A breastplate which had been manufactured with utmost expertise, according to hard-to-find schematics. It was an armor of incredibly high quality, reinforced with a rune spell that had cost him a fortune. Mastercrafted armor, an excellent combination of selected materials, beautiful, crafted to enhance every advantage of his training and of his lifelong experience.

In other words, an irreplaceable piece.  
  
"Geralt, is that…"  
Triss looked at him in disbelief.

He slowly moved closer to the wall, carefully placing his hand on the draconid leather, as if he feared it was just an illusion.  
"Nice piece," Adan said unmoved. "Have you forgotten it here or what? Will someone enlighten me? What's with all this blood here and..."  
"Shut up," Geralt said, softly and not even unkindly.

He had knelt down and looked at his armor carefully.

There was blood on it. And that wasn't his blood - the piece hadn't even been around when they were here last time, and this blood was fresh. It wasn't hard to determine this time. It was Emhyr's blood. Not much, but it was enough to send a shiver down his spine. And he understood: This was supposed to be kind of a gift, a twisted and evil surprise. And a warning at the same time.  
  
"They're not here," he said, almost as if in a trance. "Why aren't they here?"   
He reached for his armor, stood up and turned abruptly to Adan.  
"Are you sure that King Mathen is expecting a mage?"  
Adan frowned in confusion.  
"What? Why?"

Triss opened her eyes wide. Far below them, they could now hear the footsteps of the soldiers who had waited a few minutes as ordered and now stormed the tower. Only that there was nothing to storm. And Geralt and Triss began to understand why.

"Are you sure that he spoke of a mage. Could it be a sorceress?" Triss asked the cat school witcher urgently.  
"It makes little difference to me," he replied, as he thought about it. "I understand his father once used a mage as a spy. As for Mathen himself, I'm not sure. Anyway, he has occasionally talked about how he's been waiting for a message for a long time - well, at least since Radovid’s gone. The King assumes he's entitled to magical support or some stuff. And the other day a letter came. Could have been pretty much from Aretuza, if you're talking about it."  
"Are you sure?"  
„By all accounts, your Emperor himself is partly responsible for ensuring that mages can show their faces on the streets again. So why wouldn't Mathen have contacted Aretuza? It's the only academy around I know of. The only one a king would write to to apply for a sorceress, isn’t it?“

"There’s only one problem with it“, Geralt said, turning to the door again, his armor in his hands. "Aretuza hasn’t even started to reopen officially, and it certainly won’t for a long time, since the headmistresshas vanished.“  
"What is that supposed to mean?“  
"It means we must hurry“, Triss replied. „We need to get back.“  
"What, you’re saying that crazy sorceress lured us up here for no reason?“ Adan asked in disbelief.

"She had a reason“, Geralt said in a dark voice. „She needed us distracted. Away from the court of Cidaris. Your king has been fooled. Just like us.“  
"Oh, crap“, Adan shouted and ran out of the room, heading to the stairs, outrunning the confused soldiers that came up.  
„Are you coming?“ he yelled after Geralt and Triss, not even waiting for an answer, jumping down the stairs.  
  
Geralt was about to follow him, when Triss suddenly said: "Wait. There’s something else here.“

She had turned to the scruffy bed. Something in the corner of her eye had catched her attraction. In the middle of the disgustingly bloodshed mattress lay a ring. It had been placed there on porpuse, but they had almost missed it. It was a fine silver ring, meant for a woman’s finger. 

"There’s an engraving“, Triss whispered. And she turned pale.  
"What is it?“ Geralt asked, alerted.

Triss held the ring to him without any words. It was not new, but certainly not an antique. The ring had no ornaments whatsoever, but it was definetely pure silver and a fine craftmanship. The engraving consisted only of enitials: A & E. It was certainly once meant as a gift, maybe some kind of love token.

"Who are … wait. You don’t think the E is for Emhyr? Why would he give such a ring to a woman, let alone a sorceress. He lost Pavetta so long ago, and I don’t know of any … He told me…“  
He broke off, seriously disturbed.  
"You wouldn’t know“, Triss said flat. „Because if I’m right, _this_ was definetely supposed to be a secret.“  
"But who is A then?“ he asked, puzzled.

"A woman that is dead,“ she answered in a gravely tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who the fuck is "A"?
> 
> After being obsessed with Tyr for some time now, here's a [song](https://tinyurl.com/y8ptgnvs) I heard A LOT while writing this chapter. Don't mind the barking at the beginning, it's a catchy song :) It's also on the playlist in the Introduction.
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Harvester of souls."


	20. War is the only answer / When love will conquer fear

**— 19 —  
**  
**War is the only answer / When love will conquer fear**

"Impossible," Emhyr repeated, and he could not prevent his voice from actually sounding as confused as he felt.

He sat up, a little too quickly - now that the sedation had worn off, he noticed that his head hurt, and he became dizzy for a moment. He touched his forehead and noticed dried blood. There was blood on his hand as well. But all in all - just a small cut and a laceration. He analysed his status cool and in a few seconds. He was alive. But she...

"You're dead," he said, and he realized how stupid that sounded.   
"No, my dear. I was _supposed_ to be dead. There's a big difference."  
  
In fact, there she stood in front of him, looking down on him with a mixture of triumph, suppressed anger and a myriad of other emotions.

There she stood: Assire var Anahid.

A woman who was supposed to be dead. Who he _thought_ was dead. He had even mourned for her - maybe not as long as she might have hoped. The woman who had once been his strategic advisor. And more. A little more. Emhyr had a feeling that she remembered it differently than he did. And that this was the reason for the whole mess.  
  
He would have got up, but there was nothing in the whole damn room to hold on to, and he didn't quite trust his legs yet. This was not a position he was used to, certainly not an appropriate one, and he didn't want to look like a man who would get down on his knees before anyone, neither to her nor to anyone else. How ironic, Emhyr thought, that he could understand Geralt's point of view - which he had never doubted anyway - even better at that moment.

"Then tell me how that is possible," he said as he looked around, absorbing the surroundings. But there wasn't much to see - a dirty, dark room that gave away nothing and could be practically anywhere.  
"Oh, I'm sure you're interested. Now that you learn, after all these years, that your little plan to get rid of me has failed," she replied with a sharp sneer in her voice.

Emhyr looked at her searchingly. She had hardly changed, maybe aside from the hair she was now wearing loose. She still did not care much about her appearance, she refrained from emphasizing her somewhat hidden beauty in any way. He remembered how he had tried to change that once, but the success had been similar to the attempt to get Geralt to wear actual _clothes_ instead of his armor. She had not liked it. That she had been so different from the others around him was of course one reason why he had once felt attracted to her. However, this was hardly the right time to think about patterns in his relationships.  
  
"I didn't plan anything like this," he answered calmly.

"Of course not."

Her voice sounded like shattering glass.

By now, Emhyr believed he could stand up. He propped himself up against the floor and finally stood upright in front of her. He remembered Assire being taller. But he would not make the mistake of underestimating her. She had always been an extremely capable sorceress. But something must have happened. He had a rather theoretical idea of the abilities of those with magical talents, but after numerous conversations with Triss Merigold, he believed that what Assire had done was beyond compare.

And he didn't need a reminder that she was dangerous. That woman had invaded his palace with an army of ghosts, for goodness sake.

"Fitz-Oesterlen..." he started, but she cut him off.  
"Of course you yourself wouldn't have gotten your hands dirty. But don't tell me you didn't hire him."  
"Your...death has brought enormous unrest to the country. Shilard cost me a lot, and I still don't know what his motives were. Besides: _Why_ would I have hired him?“  
  
She came closer, moved very close to him, looked at him with eyes much darker than he remembered. She placed a finger on his lips - it was, almost unexpectedly, a tremendously unpleasant touch.  
"Lies, lies, lies. Emhyr, you seem to have forgotten that I once knew you well. You promised me something, but you only did it because I wanted to hear it. And then I found out your little secret."

He gazed at her with a penetrating look. She wasn't just dangerous. She was completely insane.

"I never promised you anything. And I have no _secret_."

She laughed. It was not a pretty sound.

"Sure, not anymore. You are well on the way to one day owning the whole continent. Megalomaniacal, but understandable. Who cares who you get into bed with today?"  
  
And then he did something that actually seemed to surprise her. Anyway, she took a step back, when suddenly he twisted his mouth and laughed as well. Just like before with her, it didn't sound very pleasant. “You seriously think I ordered to _kill_ you because you found out I prefer men? That's amusing, I must say."

Assire had gotten over her surprise - if that was what had caused her to pause for a moment.   
By now it was almost dark in that room. The only window was too far away from Emhyr, he wasn't able to peer out and find out where he was, and it did not bring much light into the room. But despite the dim light it was clear that the sorceress' eyes had an almost feverish glow.

"You promised me a far greater role in your empire," she said softly. "But I do not think I was much good as a wife after I found that out."

"When... what?"

Emhyr stared at her in amazement.

"I never promised you anything like this. This is crazy."  
"Oh, is it? I understand you married a _witcher_. I'd call that crazy, my dear."  
"I did not," he replied quietly. "And you'd better leave him out of it."  
"Oh, I know you didn’t.“

She laughed again, then suddenly turned, muttered something, made a gesture. When she turned to Emhyr again, she held something in her hands, which he didn't recognize at first because of the dim light.

"You see, it is too late for that now, Emhyr. You both spoiled my fun once before. I have tried so hard with this curse. Did you know that druids have an amazing repertoire of curses? That was very helpful. My only regret was that I couldn't be there - I would have loved to see your face when the witcher died. Obviously I made two mistakes - first, I underestimated the mutations. Second, I underestimated your daughter. I won't make that mistake again, believe me. I guarantee that brat is going to be a little more busy in Brugge than she thinks. And don't think Yennefer will be of much help there."

"What have you done?"

Emhyr was convinced she was bluffing. What could she do to Ciri? Especially since Ciri was travelling with Yennefer of Vengerberg - who not only seemed to be an excellent advisor, but was a powerful sorceress. And yet: the thought that she might extend her diabolical games to his daughter, all the little details and intrigues she seemed to master so masterfully ... it was almost unbearable.

And then he noticed what she was holding in her hands. He recognized this object: it was the witcher's armor she had stolen directly from his palace. The one armor that his usually relatively taciturn lover had lamented more about than about any of the pain the sorceress had caused him.

A moment later she was with him again, suddenly reaching for his hand. The cut that the man had made on him, now scattered in two pieces on the floor, had stopped bleeding long ago. Until she pulled the edges of the cut apart. Emhyr flinched, but it was pointless to try to pull his hand away. She was too fast and already had what she wanted: a few drops of his blood, which she picked up with her index finger and smeared on the armor.

"What are you going to do?" he asked when she finally let go.

"I'm going to have my fun, what do you think? I'll gradually destroy everything you have built up and I'll let you watch. I will start with this useless witcher-lover of yours. I have a feeling you won't like it."

"What are you going to do?" Emhyr repeated.

He never doubted for a second that her plan was crazy enough to harm Geralt again. And Emhyr really had no interest in watching him die again. He thought that the day they had actually, truly come together was the day he had felt something again for a very, very long time. But with it, fear had also returned - an almost forgotten feeling for which there had been no reason for a long time. And when Emhyr had been kneeling in Geralt's blood in that tower and Geralt had stopped breathing, he had finally understood what fear was.

"What I am going to do?"

There was that laughter again, cheerless and hard.

"I'm sprinkling breadcrumbs."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't know: Assire var Anahid is a character both featured in the books and in Witcher 2. I haven't played that game and I am utterly bored with the political details in the books, so I didn't went any further in her description than what you can find online. And of course all of this is complete nonsense and isn't even intended to fit in any canon. 
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "And then there was silence".


	21. Disanoint him, take his crown

**— 20 —**

**Disanoint him, take his crown** ****

"You're not seriously gonna wear that, are you?"

They had virtually run back, and Geralt almost believed that the portal would have vanished into thin air - which was ridiculous because the soldiers had just used it, after all. But he would not have been particularly surprised, either, if the way back had been cut off like this.

To explain to the commander that they all had to return to Cidaris urgently had been another matter. But one could hardly blame the man for being fed up with chasing a phantom - they all were. In the end, the commander obeyed his orders, and his soldiers had no business asking what the point of their mission was.

The men left behind in front of the ruins had recaptured the horses, but before they finally saddled up, Geralt insisted on putting on the wolf armor. There was nothing wrong with the one he was wearing right now, of course, but this was something completely different. The gear had not been deposited there without reason. Geralt was convinced that nothing in the sorceress' game happened without reason. So he would make sure that she would get as much of the wolf as possible now. It didn't matter to Geralt that the cat school witcher did not understand this.

"I'm just saying, the whole thing seems like some kind of blood fetish or something,“ Adan continued.

Geralt gave him an "Shut up, lunatic" look, which didn't bother the elf.

He just stood there, next to his horse, the reins already in his hand, his face thoughtful. No, not _thoughtful_ \- he had obviously already thought about something and had drawn his conclusions.

"Just think about it. There was blood everywhere. It was old, but not old enough that I wouldn't notice that it was yours - and that was surely not a normal amount of blood, you’d be dead if you’d lose that much. And there was a lot of vampire blood, if I'm not mistaken, which I find very confusing, by the way, but obviously you two chose not to tell me what was going on, fine. That one, however..." - he pointed to the armor - "that's someone else's blood, and by your face, I'd say it's the Emperor's. Why the hell so much _blood_? Well, either that sorceress is really into body fluids. Or the whole thing has a ritualistic quality. What if she cast an enchantment on that thing? You put it on and you're under her spell or whatever."

Geralt looked as if rooted to the spot. He had already taken off the other armor, and he stood there in his shirt, feeling pretty exposed, but not because of the clothing. Triss looked at him uneasily. The feline had a point - and they hadn't thought about it themselves. The curse the sorceress had put on the dagger last time had actually been about blood. The curse that Margarita had put on Mikaela had been about blood - and what if this hadn't been Rita's idea in the first place? Now Geralt had been lured out of the King's court - by basically nothing more than a bloody handprint. He had received something valuable back, and at the same time he had been reminded - by just a few drops of blood - that he could still lose something much more valuable.

Triss took the armor out of Geralt's reluctand hands, put it down and examined it magically. After letting her fingers glide over it for a while, she said somewhat relieved: "No, it's absolutely fine. No spells or anything magical about it.“ 

"Paranoid", Geralt murmured, but it was not clear whether he sounded angry or worried. But currently he seemed to be in a permanently state of both, as if it made no difference.

They were riding back as fast as they could. Evening had come, and soon it would be completely dark. They had lost a lot of time by now and had fallen into the trap like absolute idiots - only in a completely different one than they had expected. 

And Geralt was still not certain if he should take Triss' suspicion seriously - _Assire var Anahid_? He wasn't sure if he had ever met her, but he knew that she had been a member of the lodge Triss and Yennefer had been in. It was no secret that she had died under unexplained circumstances, even though her murderer was soon determined and this fact had caused quite a mess. It was also no secret that Emhyr had always known how to use sorceresses for his own purposes - which, by the way, hardly distinguished him from many other rulers. Whether he had something to do with her death, Geralt didn't know - but it was quite possible that Assire believed that. After all, it would be a strong motive. Why she was also after Geralt might have something to do with the ring. It was now in one of his pockets, and Geralt had the unreal feeling that it burned his skin right through the fabric - which was as irrational as the mere thought that Emhyr had ever given such a gift to anyone but Pavetta.  
  
They pushed the horses to highest speeds, travelling so fast that it was almost possible to fear that one of the animals would break its legs in the wild gallop. Nevertheless, it was dark when they reached the castle. Too dark, as Adan quietly noted. He had bridled his horse abruptly, so that the following riders almost ran into him. The elf raised a hand as murmurs and curses rose behind him, and surprisingly, they actually got quiet. He turned to Geralt, who had not had any problems to rein Roach in time.

"It is never so dark outside here," Adan claimed, pointing to a long row of fire bowls lining a wide path that cut across the gardens and led in a straight line to the sumptuous entrance. Not a single fire was lit. Even the numerous windows of the vast building were dark.

"Besides, there's always someone running around here. An insane dovecote," Adan added.

Only that no one was outside. It was still cool, especially in the evening hours, but the entire court had seemed quite turbulent to Geralt, so he didn't think it unlikely that darkness and cold wouldn't keep at least some people from wandering around out here in the evening as well. But it was almost unnaturally quiet.  
  
"We're too late," said Triss in a strained voice.

Some of the horses whinged nervously, they seemed to feel the tension of their riders. And there was plenty of reason to be tense. Even the royal soldiers became restless - obviously something was wrong here. Geralt had no idea how big the garrison was, that had stayed at the castle - and if it was enough. It was only one sorceress, but what else?  
  
"We don't know that," Geralt replied as he descended and grabbed the sword in a flowing movement. However, he wasn't convinced that they still arrived in time. The only question was: What was waiting for them inside?

Adan did the same, held the sword at hand and moved towards the entrance. Triss kept right behind them and found that Adan moved almost catlike, fittingly, while Geralt displayed the certain roughness of the wolf in spite of all his dexterity. However: They didn't know what to expect. Two witchers, a sorceress and a squadron of soldiers might just not be enough.

Up to now, Assire - if it really was her - had always eluded them, while at the same time she had demonstrated a power Triss considered unusual. And unpredictable. Triss had reason to believe that the mysterious sorceress might indeed be Assire var Anahid - even if she had assumed that the woman had died, at almost the same moment Triss herself had come back to life.  
  
She did not like to think back on these events, and now was not the time. But various details from that time affecting Assire suddenly seemed to make much more sense than they did back then. Triss remembered how the other sorceress had once appeared almost transformed at one of their secret meetings - with make-up and in neat clothes, as if she had come from (or was on her way to) a rather private appointment. There had been other occasions when she had seemed different to Triss. Sheer trifles, not worth remembering, but now these were beads on a torn ribbon, found one by one and pushed back. Trifles that made sense now - assuming the sorceress had become the Emperor's mistress at one point.

Adan was at the entrance by now, but Geralt held him back and beckoned the commander. He quietly ordered him to divide the Cidarian soldiers and send them through the side entrances, while the Nilfgaardian soldiers and another Cidarian section should follow the witchers. This was done without comment, and only now Geralt signalled the feline to go ahead.  
  
The entrance hall, during the day usually filled with the manifold chatter of numerous ladies-in-waiting, noblemen and knights - or, according to another interpretation, petitioners, bootlickers and upstarts - was empty, dark and much too quiet. On their way through the corridors, which suddenly seemed endless to everyone, they passed several rooms. All doors were open, and everywhere the same scene: no light, no people. But also no signs of a fight, at least nothing obvious. Here and there, Geralt noticed possible indications of a hasty departure: a chair, knocked over. A tray that had fallen to the floor, the shards of a broken glass. A perfumed scarf, carelessly left lying around, or perhaps lost.  
  
But why was it so dark? Had all this happened before dusk and no one had been given a chance to light up the premises? Or was it intentional, some kind of exaggerated metaphor to keep them groping in the dark?

Their thoughts were idle, for they were now approaching the throne room, and from there, a light was now clearly visible that fell into the adjoining corridor. It was the same room where the audiences had taken place in the morning, and it seemed almost impossible to Geralt that no more time had passed since then. Not even a whole day. And yet: too many hours of uncertainty.  
  
"Those doors are never open," Adan said in a low voice. "There are no guards."

In fact, the absence of guards was conspicuous throughout the castle, but just outside the throne room it was disturbing. The large, heavy wooden doors were open all the way, and now it was clearly visible where the courtiers were: they were all crammed together in here.

There was no other way to describe it. The hall was filled on both sides with people, most of whom looked towards the opposite side. That's where the throne was. On which, nonchalantly and with clear signs of triumph on her face, a woman was sitting. Geralt heard Triss inhaling sharply.

For that woman there in front was indeed Assire var Anahid. Her hair was different, or no, not even that: She just didn't wear her ridiculous headgear anymore. Otherwise she looked like a ghost from the past, so similarwas she to the woman Triss had known before. Her clothes were sloppy, her appearance almost unkempt, and her hooked nose - which other sorceresses would have had corrected immediately - stood out sharply from her face.  
  
Apart from the usual court household, Geralt recognized the council members who had been in the room that morning. And there were still guards in the room, although no soldiers were visible. A handful of sentinels stood behind the throne as if they were supposed to represent the sorceress' personal security forces. And behind the entrance, on the other side of the door at whose threshold they stood, more guards were posted.  
  
It seemed as if the people in the hall - almost all of whom seemed completely frightened, but also confused and horrified - had deliberately left a passageway. They stood on both sides of the royal hall, but a narrow section in the middle was free, a path that led directly to the throne. The witchers and Triss now stood directly on the threshold of the throne room, behind them a swarm of soldiers, and yet no one seemed to have noticed them yet.

For all of them either stared forward, to Assire. Or they looked at the ground in front of her. There lay King Mathen - or rather, the former king. For he was clearly dead. 

It seemed as if she just had been waiting for their attention to turn to this very circumstance. Because in that moment, Assire was lifting her head and looking at all three of them. Took in the sight of them standing there, rooted to the door, behind them a handful of toy soldiers. She looked at them, one by one, with a sparkle in her eyes that no one else could see. It was just that moment when Geralt realized that they were again part of a staging - only he realized it too late. They all hesitated too long.  
  
And then Assire stood up abruptly, pointing accusingly at the door, shouting with feigned indignation: "There they are! This is the sorceress who is responsible for your King's death -and there is the consort of his Highness, the Emperor of Nilfgaard, who is still missed - with blood on his armor! Arrest them both!"

And that was when it all went down the drain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from "Curse my name" - finally :)
> 
> The original version is in the playlist, but here's a very, very good cover in a more medieval style: [Curse my name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIupOTGO3Bo)


	22. I conquer the flame / To release the insane

**— 21 —**

**I conquer the flame / To release the insane  
**

After this announcement the door guards immediately reached for Geralt and Triss. But this time, Geralt had no intention to be put into prison without a fight - and neither did Triss. However, their efforts were doomed to failure, as well as the commander's attempts to intervene in any way. As soon as the guards reached for Geralt and Triss, the doors of the hall had closed, leaving the soldiers outside. If they made any attempt to open the door, it wasn't audible. In fact, there was no sound whatsoever to be heard from the outside.

Geralt was fast, very fast: He fended off the guard's attempt to grab him by the shoulder in a split second. He dropped his knees slightly, grabbed the man's gloved hand and used his arm as a kind of lever to throw the guy over his shoulder. Then he jumped over him, kicked him in the head while still moving - the man would not get up for a while - and ran towards the sorceress. He made it almost to the middle of the corridor, which was lined with the now clearly horrified courtiers, until an casual gesture of Assire's hand threw him to the ground. He fell so hard on his spine that he wouldn't have been surprised to hear anything crack, he slipped back quite a bit through the sheer force, unable to breathe for a moment, and then found that he could not get up. It felt as if he was nailed to the floor - he couldn't even move his little finger, let alone hold the sword anymore. He soon realized that he couldn't even _speak_. This was a far more effective paralysis spell than the one Triss had spoken about the bandit a few days ago.

Triss did not fare any better. She had spontaneously kicked the guard behind her in the balls - which he had certainly not expected, but that didn't do much good since those sentinels were still in chain armor. It was a miracle to her, why those guards even obeyed the orders without any signs of hesitation. But she had no time to think about this - because time was all she needed to prepare a spell, what had been the whole purpose of her action. But it didn't come to that: After Assire had got rid of Geralt, she made a light, turning hand movement in Triss' direction. Triss cried out in pain as soon as the triskelion appeared on her wrist. She stared in shock at the tattoo, which stood out from her skin, red and burning. **  
  
**That moment was all the guard needed to get the upper hand again. He grabbed Triss, painfully twisted her arms on her back and put shackles on her wrists. Dimeritium cuffs, as she soon noticed - not only did she get dizzy instantly, she couldn't use any magic at all anymore.

So only one was left: Adan, the cat school witcher. He had not moved at all, had not said a word, he had even lowered his sword. Geralt might have thought that the other was crazy enough to want to surrender, but he couldn't see Adan from his position and couldn't even turn his head. It was just very obvious that he hadn't been taken captive so far. Triss on the other hand saw him very well, even if the pain of the still burning tattoo and the nausea caused by the dimeritium brought tears to her eyes. She thought that maybe the witcher was pretending not to be a danger for the sorceress.

Both assumptions were wrong.

Adan just did nothing, and his face seemed to express curiosity rather than anything else.

"What about this one?" asked the guard holding Triss, pointing his head at the elf.

"Yes, what about him?" replied the sorceress, almost thoughtfully, and stepped forward a little.  
  
Not only did she walk carefully past the King's corpse, but she also came very close to Geralt, who almost had his eyes pop out of their sockets with strain when trying to move anything. She looked down at him - just for a moment, so incidental, as if he was nothing more than an annoying insect to her. Then she looked back at Adan and asked, without turning around to the courtiers, "He was in some kind of advisory capacity to the King?“

After a moment of silence, the shaky voice of an old man standing near the throne - the elderman of the councillors - came up.

"That is correct," he declared.   
"Presumably your unfortunately deceased King also used him for his personal protection?" Assire asked further.  
The man nodded, until he remembered that she couldn't see him because she was still fixing the witcher with her eyes.   
"Yes," the elderman finally replied hoarsely.  
  
"Then the question is, which side do you want to be on, witcher. If you've been loyal to the King, you can still be loyal to the kingdom. There are no charges against you."  
"What are the charges against _us_?" asked Triss defiantely.

Assire jerkily turned her head, as if she hadn't expected the other sorceress to dare to ask this question, let alone in such a rude tone.

"You seriously believe that you can expect a fair trial? After the King fell dead at my feet, as soon as I arrived here? Clearly killed by magic - and the only sorceress who was here before me happens to be Triss Merigold, of all people. Who has committed high treason before."

A murmur went through the ranks of the courtiers.

"High treason against the Emperor, by the way, the guest of honour at the royal court, who has disappeared without trace since this morning. Is this a coincidence? I don’t believe so. And isn't it true that this witcher there," she pointed to Geralt lying on the ground, "is the Emperor's husband and has accused the King of being responsible for his disappearance?“

This time Assire turned and looked directly at the elder. He swallowed.

"That's true, but..."  
"Let me summarize this once more for everyone," the sorceress interrupted him in a cold voice.

"The King is dying before my eyes, the Emperor is missing - maybe long since dead" - at these words another collective murmur went through the crowd, even some horrified sounds could be heard - "and the sorceress and the witcher disappear from the castle for several hours?“

She let her words sink in.  
  
"You should all think about which side you want to stand on now," she said quietly, looking again at the feline, who still hadn't said anything, who was still only watching.   
"We will continue our efforts to find the Emperor. Anyone who refuses will be charged with treason. Just like this witcher here," she continued. "Take him away now. He will soon tell us what he knows and then we will find the Emperor. But tomorrow morning, he will be executed."

That was the moment when Adan raised his voice.

"On exactly what charge?" he asked calmly, and he actually still sounded more interested than worried.  
"High treason, of course," replied the sorceress. "He has probably killed the Emperor, and his accomplice is responsible for the King's death."  
"Why would they do that? And what evidence is there to back it up?"   
There was still neither accusation nor doubt in his voice.

Assire watched the elf closely.   
„I'm not particularly interested in their reasons - but that these two were lovers once is no secret. Probably they started a new affair, the Emperor found out about it and they decided to get rid of him. Maybe they killed the king to distract from it, maybe he had become suspicious - we will find out all this when we have interrogated the witcher.“

  
It wasn't a bad story. She cast just enough doubt that no one was paying attention to the details. And like any good story, it had some very real elements: Their former relationship, which was always a possible motive. Triss had been accused of high treason, simply by the mere fact that she had been a member of the lodge. Assire just didn't mention that she herself had been killed for the same reason. Should have been killed. That the blood of the Emperor stuck to Geralt’s armor was also all too true. He should have just wiped it off, but he had been in too much of a hurry to even think about it - he could not have suspected what could come of it. He seriously wondered how far ahead she had planned this. How much she had assumed he wouldn't simply remove her deliberately planted evidence. How much of it was spontaneous and how much was orchestrated?

"And as for the evidence," Assire continued, "As a witcher, you should be able to determine whose blood this is on his armor. Well?"  
"The Emperor's," Adan replied without hesitation.

The crowd gasped.

 _Thanks a lot_ , Geralt thought. _Just wonderful._

"And can you tell what the King died of?" the sorceress asked.

Adan stepped closer to the body, carefully walking around Geralt - whom he did not even look at. He knelt down beside the king, looked closely at the body, held the head of the dead man in his hands and turned it sideways for a moment. When he bent over his mouth and smelled it, terrified murmurs rose, which the sorceress muted immediately with a stern look into the crowd.

The answer was obvious, and the feline delivered it.

"Magic. No wounds, no signs of poison.“

Assire turned to the courtiers and council members, her arms crossed, her face covered with an expression as if she were in a courtroom and had just produced decisive evidence. Her reasoning was tenuous, and there might be people in the courtroom who recognized this, but no one dared to speak up. No one asked why anyone should walk around with the obvious evidence of a crime, or how Triss could have killed the king if she hadn't even been there. But even if someone had asked these questions, she would have had an answer, Geralt was sure of that.   
  
And he was sure of one other thing: That Emhyr was still alive, still had to be alive. Assire probably wanted to make sure he witnessed Geralt's execution in some way. He couldn't imagine how. But he believed that was her plan. Perhaps the first step towards destroying Emhyr completely.  
  
He now noticed that he gradually regained control over his muscles, that his body began to obey him again, if ever so slowly. He could move his toes, it was not much, but it was a beginning. But Assire seemed to know that too - of course she could estimate how long her paralysis spell would last. She waved at the guards behind the throne.

"Take him away now."

And while two guards at once tried to pick the motionless witcher from the ground, whose knees gave way immediately when they tried to get him on his feet, the sorceress turned back to Adan.

"I ask you once more, which side do you want to stand on? I understand that you were acting on behalf of the King when you were on the road with the two traitors. Until the King's succession is decided, the council will speak for the kingdom under my leadership. I am sure there will be a use for your... skills. What do you say?"

He did not hesitate this time either.

"I have no objection," he replied most casually.

Geralt, who still didn't have enough control over his body to do anything about the fact that he was practically dragged over the ground and brought out, wasn't surprised at all by the change of mind of the other witcher. Although, it was not actually a change of mind - the elf had obviously never really been on their side.  
  
"This is madness, and you all know that none of this is true!" Triss suddenly yelled.

But no one really paid any attention to her, for when the guards opened the door, a gruesome picture presented itself to them: In the corridor in front of the throne room dozens of soldiers were lying, including the Nilfgaardian commander, and it was impossible to tell whether they were dead or just unconscious. The guards had trouble getting Geralt out due to the fact that the hall was partly blocked by the soldiers on the ground. They tried again to get him on his feet, but although he had feeling in his feet again, his legs still failed him. His sword lay in the middle of the throne room, he couldn't reach the other one, and he doubted that any resistance in the presence of the sorceress would have made any sense. The guards dragged him over the soldiers, cursing all the way.

The heavy doors closed by themselves and the courtiers were spared the disturbing sight of the soldiers. Not that anyone had raised their voices to ask what it all meant. They were all too frightened.  
That was Assire's true power, Triss realized. She was a single sorceress among dozens of men and women, surrounded by soldiers.She was outnumbered, but no one rose up against her. No one dared. Whatever had happened since the day she had been stabbed and thrown into the river had made her become this: a woman whose powers could stand against a superior force. A woman that was not doubted by anyone.

"Shall I take the sorceress away too?“ the sentinel asked, who was still standing behind Triss, holding her by the shoulders, although she could hardly move under the influence of the dimeterium shackles anyway.

"No," replied Assire. "I will interrogate her myself later. Maybe with a little help," she said with a side glance to Adan. In the meantime he had put away his sword and now, without being prevented from doing so, he reached for Geralt's sword that had slipped out of the latter's hands. He picked it up, weighed it in his hand and had obviously come to the conclusion that he liked it and that he would keep it.

"Certainly," he said to the sorceress. "I'm sure I can help with that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hands up, who thinks Adan's a dick?
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Wheel of time".


	23. While I head into the storm / There’s no need to walk alone

**— 22 —**

**While I head into the storm / There’s no need to walk alone**

About half an hour later, the paralysis spell had completely vanished and Geralt, who had been waiting impatiently for this moment, stood up cursing. After all: This time there hadn't been any beating - probably it just wasn't that interesting to hit a numb body. On the other hand, the jailer wasn't even there. The guards had dragged Geralt through half the castle, having a lot of fun kicking him down the stairs - he would probably notice the bruises later on - and then had thrown him into the cell without comment.   
  
****No one had come to see him since. They had taken the second sword from him, but had not bothered to tie him up. Why they felt it was not necessary was not entirely clear. Geralt suspected, however, that an amusing program was planned for the night - a little torture, probably carried out by Assire herself. Presumably this was more fun if there was some resistance to expect from his side. At least he thought she was arrogant enough - or competent enough, which she had already proven - to take him on. But she had no idea what it meant to drive a witcher into a corner.  
  
The guards had lit a few torches on the way, because it had indeed been pitch black in the castle, so a light was burning down here as well. Not that there was much to see - at least nothing that helped Geralt in any way. The musty stone walls of his little prison shone in the pale glow of the torch, which could only illuminate a small part of the room from the corridor. A view out of the tiny window, which was mounted high up on a wall - essentially no more than a hole for ventilation - showed nothing but blackness.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed when Geralt - who was kneeling on the floor, but for some reason didn't manage to find the peace for meditation - noticed a shadow in the corridor.   
He rose immediately. He would not kneel in front of the sorceress.  
  
Only it wasn't the sorceress who suddenly appeared before the bars of his cell.   
It was Adan.

Geralt twisted his mouth to a scornful grin.  
He stepped up to the bars, put both hands on them and looked at the feline with pronounced boredom.  
"So she leaves the dirty work to you? How fitting. I hope you've thought of something interesting. Whipping is a bit boring to me."

"Shut up, you stupid bastard," Adan hissed at him unexpectedly. "We haven't got much time."  
He suddenly held a bunch of lock picks in his hand and fumbled with the lock on the iron bars.  
"What are you doing?" Geralt asked suspiciously.  
The other witcher had managed to find the right picklock by now and opened the bars.

"I wonder what," Adan replied snippily,„we’re breaking out.“  
_"We_? I'm fed up with these stupid games", Geralt said, now visibly pissed off.  
But the elf, who usually appeared exceptionally calm, also seemed visibly tense.  
"Shut the hell up, keep your stupid prejudices to yourself and hurry. I brought your swords with me, they're on the table in the hall.“

"What is this supposed to be?" Geralt asked again. He still didn't trust the feline at all, but he left the cell, looked around quickly and actually discovered his swords on a crooked table besides a chair, apparently the place where the jailer usually sat. He quickly took the swords and stowed them on his back.

"Listen, we really don't have much time," Adan explained as he walked slowly, alertly up the stairs ahead, followed by Geralt, who was still wondering what was going on.   
"We must find the Emperor _tonight_."

"Considering I'm scheduled to be executed tomorrow morning, this is indeed somewhat urgent," Geralt remarked sarcastically.   
"I suppose he shall watch the show," Adan responded perceptively. "But she can hardly let him show up openly - first of all it would be clear that you didn't kill him, and secondly he would probably object to the execution.“  
"I do hope so," muttered Geralt.

"Anyway", the feline continued, "we have to find him tonight. I don't know what this madwoman is up to, but I personally prefer a continent under Nilfgaard to the rule of a lunatic sorceress."  
"Amazing, since she has offered you a promising position," said Geralt in a suppressed voice, since they had meanwhile reached the top of the stairs.

He looked around attentively: The corridor lay dark, empty and silent before them. Nevertheless, Adan grabbed his arm briefly and held him back.

"It somehow doesn't seem to sink into your wolf's skull that we're not all responsible for the crimes committed in the name of our school."  
"No", Geralt replied coldly, "I actually think that's rather unlikely."

Adan sighed dramatically.   
"Whatever. For once, this is about something bigger than just another pissing contest. But I can also just disappear, if you would like that so much better."  
He looked at Geralt defiantly.  
"Two witchers are better than one," Geralt finally admitted reluctantly. "But where's Triss?"

They started moving again, and Adan ran a little ahead - obviously he had a plan. He turned to Geralt and replied: "I'm afraid she's out of the game for now. The sorceress intends to have a private conversation with your friend, before she takes you on.“  
Geralt stopped abruptly.

"Then we must stop her."  
"Are you crazy? Come on. We won't save your Emperor for sure if we go after the sorceress right now. You've seen what she’s capable of.“  
"If you're seriously suggesting that I deliberately have her tortured to buy us time..."  
"It's the only way," Adan claimed unmoved. "I suppose she'll hold out."  
"You're a stone-cold bastard," Geralt said between clenched teeth.

But he knew that the other witcher was right. Assire didn't mean to kill Triss. She had too much fun with her game - and besides, she could have killed her right away. Instead, she had branded her with her mark. Maybe that meant that she wanted to try to get Triss on her side - which he thought was a useless endeavor - or that she could control her with it somehow. In any case, torture was nothing new for Triss. If she knew that there was a chance to save the Emperor, this very situation would probably have been her own suggestion - it wouldn't be the first time. He hated it anyway.

"Very original," Adan replied unmoved. "Come on."  
He turned around again and kept moving.  
"As soon as we have the Emperor, I'll go back and get Triss," Geralt shouted after him.   
"I don't care if you want to kill yourself," the elf answered without turning back.  
"But don't think I'm going to take part in this."

"What are you planning to do anyway?" Geralt asked as they rushed through the dark corridors and carefully peered up at the foot of a staircase.  
"We have no idea where to even begin to look."  
"No, but I suspect we'll find a clue in her chambers."  
"You want to search the _sorceress' room_ for information? That's damn insane," Geralt pointed out.

In the meantime they had climbed the stairs and reached the next floor. Like everything before in the castle, it was mostly covered in darkness, but here there were several windows along the walls, so that the deserted corridor was at least illuminated by some moonlight. Suddenly a whole flock of ravens passed by outside, clearly standing out from the sky. The birds made an improbable noise as they croaked across the castle.  
  
Both witchers flinched, then they looked at each other, a sheepish grin on their lips.   
"Pretty unusual," Geralt remarked.   
Adan nodded, although a few birds were not exactly the most pressing problem.

"We have to hurry," he repeated.  
Geralt frowned.  
"What if she is there right now?"  
"She's not. She's not interrogating the redhead in her bedroom."  
"Why are you so sure?" Geralt asked.  
"Because she wants me to get something from there and meet her back in the throne room. Some kind of box, maybe a magic item or something."  
"Now the errand boy as well?" Geralt mumbled.

Adan ran his fingers through his dark, curly hair, almost looking embarrassed. No, not embarrassed, Geralt noticed in surprise: The _stone-cold bastard_ looked like someone who suddenly had to realize that he might have been a little too full of himself.

"No. I maybe suggested helping her with the interrogation."  
Geralt rolled his eyes.   
"Fantastic plan", he growled. "Why didn't you say so? Hurry up!"

Now he ran ahead.   
"Didn't I?" the elf snarled back. "And besides, you don't even know where we're going!“  
  


—  
  


The handful of soldiers, who had been divided into two teams, had orders to sound out the situation and report to the commander of the Nilfgaardians at a fixed meeting point. The units entered the castle at different side entrances and, independently of each other, found the same picture: Deserted, dark corridors. It was disturbing, and they were suddenly very aware how few they were.

When the groups gathered at the meeting point, this fact became even clearer to them: neither the rest of the Cidarian troops were here, nor the Nilfgaardians, who had taken command. In this small troop the senior was in charge now, who was not exactly happy about this prospect, considering the strange circumstances. However, the rest of the soldiers relied on someone telling them what to do now. The man looked around, examining his comrades - basically no more than palace guards without any real combat experience - and decided to search for the rest of the soldiers.

Finally they reached a fork in the sheer endless halls. The corridor went straight ahead for a long time until another set of stairs led down to the back of the castle, where the kitchens and cellars were located. To the right was another, much wider passageway, that led to the throne room. When the senior turned the corner, he was presented with a grotesque sight: Dozens of soldiers lay in the corridor, some on top of each other, as if they had all just suddenly fallen down. And that was perhaps true, the soldier noted: after quickly checking the vital signs of some of them, it was clear that they were alive. They seemed to be asleep, perhaps drugged; like some twisted version of the tale of sleeping beauty. He noticed that the men behind him became restless. He could not blame them - he himself would also have preferred to be somewhere else now.

Suddenly the door to the throne room opened, and the soldier showed quick thinking: with a wave of his hand, he told the men behind him to withdraw immediately. As quietly as possible, the men huddled themselves into the shadows of the corridor, while the senior carefully peered around the corner. Two guards dragged someone out of the hall, and he soon realized that it was the white-haired witcher - who neither resisted nor made a sound. Something was _very_ wrong here. He pressed himself against the wall, held his breath and prayed that the guards would take the other way. There were only two of them, but whatever was going on here, he had no great desire to attack his own people.  
  
His instincts had saved him: The guards actually dragged the witcher in the other direction, which certainly meant they took him to the cells. When they practically kicked him down the stairs, the soldier flinched.

"What the hell are they doing there?" whispered one of his comrades, after the guards had disappeared down the stairs.  
"I have no idea," he replied grimly. "But we definitely need reinforcements."  
"The next troop units are in Vole," another gave to consider.   
"Then we'll have to make our way there."  
"With all due respect, that's a ride of several hours..."  
"Do you think this is _normal_?" he asked, pointing to the soldiers lying there like dead, making a vague gesture towards the stairs where the guards had disappeared. The other bit his lip.  
"We _have_ to get reinforcements.“

  
—  
  


As it turned out, the sorceress had been given guest quarters on the second floor, which was as abandoned and empty as everything else in the castle. Even the corridor, where the guest quarters were located, was dark and empty, none of the rooms were guarded anymore. As they finally stood outside the door to her room, Adan said: "You go in, I'll keep watch."

Geralt frowned.  
"If you pull off any shit here..."  
The elf rolled his eyes, annoyed.  
"You are probably the most paranoid and suspicious witcher I have ever met."

Geralt mumbled something incomprehensible and entered the chambers.They consisted of two spacious rooms, a kind of salon and an adjoining bedroom. He had to light a few candles in their wall brackets, before he noticed that the salon seemed almost sterile: At first glance, nothing indicated that anyone lived here. In the bedroom, at least, there was a dress on the bed: a piece made of extremely expensive fabric that was draped there as if it was just waiting for its wearer. It was dyed in an almost obscene scarlet red - the appropriate clothing for an execution, Geralt thought.

On a dressing table on the wall was a small box. It was probably what Adan had been supposed to bring. Geralt hesitated when he looked at it. It wasn't really a box, more like a little apparatus. With a crystal in the middle. He had seen one of those before: it was a portable teleport, similar to the one Regis had used to take them to the tower on the island. Maybe it was even the same - those were rare, and the one in the imperial palace had actually somehow disappeared and couldn’t be found.  
  
It was a weird little thing, and by now Geralt knew that the crystal could be programmed for a specific place. After that his charge was used up and the crystal was useless. Geralt picked up the device. Wherever the teleport went this time, he was sure that Emhyr was there. The question was, why Assire had wanted the elf to bring the item to her in the throne room. Geralt had expected the „box“ to be something she would use to torture Triss, but he realized that the assumption was nonsensical - Assire didn't need _items_ to hurt her.  
  
But she wouldn't need a portable teleport either - unless she was hiding Emhyr in a place she had magically secured, so no one could locate him. The portable teleport, once programmed, would virtually override this security - provided one understood this extremely complicated form of magic.

She was probably planning on taking Triss there. Or she wanted to bring Emhyr back much earlier than expected. Whatever it was: Now Geralt had the device. And he knew that he could activate it with a sign.

At that moment, he felt something that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Actually, there were two things: a feeling - and a familiar smell.   
He turned around - and almost dropped the box.

"Fuck!" he uttered, with a sincere surprise in his voice.   
Behind him, in the doorway, with an indistinct expression on his face, stood Regis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ... Team Adan, anyone? :)
> 
> After I decided yesterday that he had curls, I immediately realized what he looked like. He's [Mordred](https://merlin.fandom.com/de/wiki/Mordred?file=Season-5-merlin-on-bbc-32373471-3333-5000.jpg) with elven ears! 
> 
> Besides, has no one ever wondered why I mention ravens so often? It starts in chapter 7 (8 because of the introduction). 
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "The point of no return".


	24. The obvious point is / I'm insane

**— 23 —**

**The obvious point is / I’m insane**

The throne room was empty now - except for Triss and Assire. She had sent everyone out, had the king's body taken away, had entrusted some with the preparations for a funeral and an execution, and had ordered the rest to withdraw. It was an order the frightened courtiers were only too happy to obey. Triss wondered how Assire could be sure that none of them would leave the castle - to seek help wherever they could, or simply to get away - but probably the sheer fact that, to leave the room, they had to climb over a pile of soldiers lying there like dead was enough for most of them.   
  
****And even if some had escaped, it probably wouldn't have made much difference. It seemed, that it would take a larger army to stand against this sorceress. Or an even bigger mage. And at the moment Triss wondered if even Yennefer would be enough here - who, of this she was certain, would not hesitate to confront Assire with all dark means. And as for Ciri: Her powers were enormous and unequalled, but - despite all of Yennefer's efforts - they were still largely unpredictable. Ciri was also unrivalled as a witcher and fast enough to surprise Assire: There must have been a reason why the sorceress had withdrawn immediately the last time Ciri appeared. Certainly not just because she hadn't expected her, Triss thought. But Ciri was not here, and this time she would not be able to contact her so easily.  
  
****Now that they were alone, after Assire had also sent the traitorous feline out of the room with some task, Triss asked, "What happened to you?"

Assire had sat down on the throne again - an almost obscene gesture. She casually shrugged her shoulders and replied, "A very good question. But since we have a little time, I think I can answer it for you."  
"Time for what?"  
The Sorceress did not answer that question.

Triss, however, was able to imagine some of the things Assire might have been planning. She just didn't quite understand what the woman might have against her personally, since their relationship had always been purely collegial. They had been a part of the lodge together, which required a certain loyalty, although certainly not friendship. It didn't make much sense to "interrogate" Triss now, if this interrogation should turn into torture - there was absolutely nothing she could have told her, nothing Triss could imagine that Assire could even care about. The only secrets here were Assire's own. And she was obviously willing to reveal some of them, because she suddenly kept talking.   
  
****"When I sank in that river, with deep stab wounds that were definitely fatal - I could feel it - I almost drowned before I bled to death. But the current carried me along. I don't know about that anymore, but the river dragged me pretty far. I ended up somewhere deep in the woods where the river got narrower and wasn't so torrential anymore. And that's where it gets interesting," Assire recounted.  
  
Triss, who couldn't do anything but stand there and move as little as possible, so that the dimeritium cuffs didn't burn her skin too much, thought: _Just keep talking_. For one fact had become clear to her in her life: Whatever the reasons for their misdeeds, the perpetrators always wanted to talk about it with incredible fervor. And that often produced one or two results: Either their gibberish about their past betrayed a weakness. Or they bought their counterpart valuable time in which to think about a rescue. Unfortunately, Triss couldn't think of a possible scenario in which she or Geralt played any major role at the moment.  
  
"And you know what the ironic part is?" Assire continued. Triss stared at her. She wasn't interested at all, but since the other sorceress liked it so much to hear herself speak, she encouraged her: "I don't know. What?"

Assire laughed softly, crossing her legs and smoothing her robe.  
"That it were druids who found me."  
"Why is that ironic?" Triss asked with a frown.

"Because I studied their magic. It was Emhyr's idea."  
"Why would the Emperor be interested in druids?"  
"At the time, relations with the druids in the empire were quite difficult. Haven't you ever heard of it?There were arguments about whether the druids attacked the Nilfgaardians first or vice versa. There were rumours that they were luring people into the woods to kill them, and such nonsense. Emhyr wanted to know the nature of their powers, and then decide how best to deal with them."

That sounded understandable - and indeed like a strategy that the Emperor would use.

"Well, let's say I buy that story," Triss said. "So the druids found you. And then?"

"Oh, they learned amazing things from the dryads," continued Assire.

She tapped around on the armrests of the throne with her short fingernails, lost in thought, as if recalling the events. "Apparently there was still a spark of life in me when they found me. And that was enough. I'll spare you the details, because they are bloody and, to be honest, mostly disgusting. As I recall, you were always a great healer, Triss. And according to my information, you cast a rather nasty healing spell on the witcher."

"Such a healing requires a cost," Triss replied with an unmoved face.   
But she didn't like to think back on it. That kind of magic was as terrible as it could be helpful. Probably no normal human being would have survived that procedure at all. 

"Then you understand what I’ve been through," Assire continued. "I was with them for a very long time, and for a very long time I wished I had died in that river. But little by little, I recovered, and after I understood where I was, I thought that this was the best opportunity to explore them. To learn more about them and their magic. They had no idea who I was, but of course they had soon discovered that I was a sorceress. And I... I thought for a long time that I would return to Emhyr with an amazing knowledge, a knowledge he would appreciate. Of course, I wondered why he didn't come looking for me. When I later learned that I was believed to be dead and that he had planned the whole thing, well... let's just say it was quite a shock."  
  
"You were a couple?" asked Triss, who still thought it was pretty unlikely.   
What in the world would have drawn this man to Assire?

The enchantress sat down very upright now. Her eyes took on a strange glow.

"Haven't you found my little memento?"  
"You mean the ring?" Triss asked.   
"It's not just a ring," returned Assire. "That was a promise."

Triss struggled with the recent nausea, feeling that it wasn't just the dimeritium.   
"What promise?" she asked, against her will.

Assire sighed. It was a strange sound, almost worse than her joyless laugh.

"One that was forgotten far too quickly. One that meant nothing to him, but very much to me. In the end, Emhyr will have to decide whether to keep his promise and make me his empress. Or whether he wants to watch me take everything away from him. This throne here" - she suddenly struck her fist on the armrest - "is only the beginning. He can give me what I want and deserve, or I can take it by force."

Megalomaniac, Triss thought. Or just plain insane. Healing was not always a blessing, especially when death was already clearly established. Sometimes magic had that effect. Geralt had feared it because it could bring back memories that no one wanted to live through a second time. Some people just went crazy with it. And _that_ was crazy: Did Assire really believe that the Emperor would share his realm with her, because of an old promise - which perhaps only existed in her imagination - and because of a _ring_?  
  
"You forget Ciri," she said.

An evil smile curled the sorceress' lips.  
"Certainly not. And I am also very well aware of your friend Yennefer. But they will be busy for a while yet. And when I am finished here, I will deal with them."

Triss suddenly understood that Assire - although she had planned so far ahead and thought about so many things at once - didn't really have an idea how she would deal with Ciri and Yennefer. At least not yet. And one more thing became clear to her: At the events in that tower on the small island off Aretuza, Assire had not expected Ciri. And that might mean, that she didn't fully know what she was dealing with.  
Maybe that was something she wanted to squeeze out of Triss?

"Your errand boy is taking his time," she said defiantly. "If you intend to interrogate me, you'd better start soon. I almost have the feeling that your helpmate has run away from you."

Assire laughed.

"Why would I want to interrogate you, Triss? I don't need any information."  
"Well, then why am I still here, if you're not going to torture me? You sent the feline away to get something. What do you need, pliers to rip my fingernails out?"Assire grimaced.

"That sounds awful. You have a vivid imagination, my dear. But you're completely wrong. What he's about to get is not for you."  
"For whom is it then?"  
„Oh, Triss. You've all shown amazing talent for falling into my little traps. The feline is no exception. What he's supposed to get is just a little present for your friend, the White Wolf, as I believe they call him."

Triss felt a shiver running down her spine.

"What have you done?"

"Just what I have planned. And now all we have to do is wait."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little interlude, so I can think about where I actually hid Emhyr... ^^ And I felt, she deserved at least some explanation why she was completely nuts. Even the Emperor can't be that good in bed that you would go insane if you can't have him anymore, can he! 
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Punishment divine".


	25. The raven and the wolf / Spread your dark wings around me

**— 24 —**

**The raven and the wolf / Spread your dark wings around me**

"That's not quite the welcome I had in mind," Regis said.  
He sounded as he always did: serene, calm, eloquent.  
"That's not exactly the moment I expected you back either", Geralt replied, after he had regained his composure.  
  
Regis looked down for a moment - perhaps to choose his next words carefully, perhaps because he was actually embarrassed. Geralt had never doubted that Regis would condemn himself for what he had done, although he was not to blame for it. And Geralt could only think of one way to show him that there was no reason to feel guilt.

Geralt literally bridged the distance between them: he approached Regis and embraced him. Regis appeared uncertain for a moment, almost reluctant. But then he returned the embrace, wrapped his arms around Geralt, held him tight. If that was all he needed to convince him that he had been forgiven, he could have had it much sooner, Geralt thought.

That was the moment Adan entered the room - he had heard Geralt swearing, and wondered what was going on. What he might have found there. When he saw the two of them, he immediately understood who - _what_ \- Regis was. As a witcher he probably wouldn't have noticed right away, but that he was an elf seemed to add other facets to his perception.  
  
"What the hell, a vampire?" Adan yelled, and then he had the silver sword in his hand, and nearly - really just nearly - he would have managed to hit Regis. Geralt decided to never underestimate the feline - he _was_ damn fast. But never as fast as a vampire. Regis had stepped aside, almost casually.

"Stop it", Geralt said quickly. "And be quiet, damn it. Regis is a friend."  
  
It was to Adan's credit that he was able to halt his attack as quickly as he had started it. But he didn't put the sword away, not yet. As he spoke, his voice wavered between sarcasm and disbelief.

"You screw an Emperor and have a vampire for a friend. Yeah, why doesn't that surprise me. I wonder why everyone keeps calling _me_ crazy. How did he even get in here?"  
  
"He's a _vampire_?" Geralt offered.   
"I confess, I chose a moment when you were looking in the other direction. But still I came in a different form, of course“, Regis said, watching the other witcher with his usual curiosity, which he dedicated to all creatures he found fascinating.   
Said witcher, however, remained suspicious. And this time Geralt could not blame him.  
  
Adan rubbed his hand across his forehead and murmured: "I think I'm getting a headache from all this shit. So, what's the vampire doing here?"  
"I know where the Emperor is," said Regis without hesitation. "There is a mountain fortress between Gors Velen and Dorian, in the only significant hill in these flat lands. A long abandoned base, I think. Now occupied by a bunch of bandits."

"All right, two questions," Adan interjected, before Geralt could say anything.   
"How do you know that? And how are we supposed to get there and back as fast as possible?“  
  
"The ravens," Geralt suddenly said. Now suddenly everything fitted together.   
He glanced at the vampire with a searching look.  
"You were watching me. From the moment that we were back in Wyzima, probably.“  
"I didn't know that the curse could only be broken by your death“, Regis replied with sincere regret in his voice. "At least my buried consciousness didn't know it at the time. I would have never...But I had to know you were all right."

"Wait, are you saying he _died_? If we're talking about necromancy now, I'm out“, said Adan.   
If one didn't know any better, it might have been assumed that he sounded almost hysterical.  
Or at least close to it.

"Calm down. It was just a minute or two," Geralt said, like that would explain anything. Or as if he was somehow accustomed to dying, which was an equally ridiculous assumption. Adan decided better not to deepen the subject. He was already feeling a little overwhelmed digesting the fact that there was a _vampire_ standing there. A higher vampire. The kind better avoided, even as a witcher. The _immortal_ kind. And what a strange specimen it was - not that Adan had anything to compare him to. But he certainly hadn't imagined that someone like that would look like a slightly old-fashioned guy with grey temples, who smelled like half an herb garden.  
  
Then Geralt turned to Regis again. And even if he didn't want to, a certain reproach echoed in his voice when he said: "Your ravens could have delivered a message, you know. We were worried."  
"So was I," Regis replied. "After everything that's happened, I wondered what else that woman was capable of. She used wild promises to get a vampire to do her bidding. And after the ravens told me of the attacks on the palace and of your departure for Cidaris, I thought…"

He didn't have to say it. Regis had been waiting for the moment to pay his supposed debt. Therefore he had his ravens watching them. It was fitting, in his own slightly eccentric way. And he wouldn't have let himself be dissuaded, even if Geralt had assured him a hundred times that he didn't feel that Regis owed him anything at all.  
  
"He talks to ravens, yes, of course," murmured Adan. "And the _ravens_ told you where the Emperor is being held, did they? Fine. I hate to repeat myself, but if I don't show up in the throne room soon, there will probably be big trouble here. Which I'd rather not be in. So how do we get to this mountain fort as quickly as possible?"

"With this," Geralt replied and showed them the box in his hand.   
Regis grimaced. The sight of the portable teleport didn't bring back good memories.  
"What is that?" Adan wanted to know.   
"A portable teleport. I'm sure it's aimed at that fort."

He briefly explained what he'd learned from Triss, after they had analyzed what happened in the tower: That the teleport could be programmed and that the crystal's charge was only ever enough for one trip. And that he suspected that the place was secured in such a way that it could only be reached by the device.

"But this is only a hunch," Adan remarked astutely. "And if it is true, how do you intend to get off the mountain?“  
"We need a second crystal", Geralt replied. "The portal opens outside of the device, so I can take it with me when I go through. That’s the whole point of it being portable, I guess. But you need at least two crystals, if you want to use it more than one time. There’s none here, I’ve looked for it.“

And the feline proved his quick thinking once more.  
  
"The portal in the elven ruins... But we won't get there that quickly... and even if we have the crystal, you can't adjust it."  
"I don't have to. If it's not aligned, the teleport will point to the nearest available portal."  
"But that could be anywhere! You're seriously counting on a stable, non-temporary portal that is open somewhere in Cidaris? And if there isn’t one, you might end up in Novigrad or somewhere else…"  
"Where at least the Emperor would be safe", Geralt said.   
"Yes, but what about your sorceress friend?"

Geralt's expression was severe, almost fatalistic, as he looked from one to the other.  
"That's why you two must make sure Triss has the opportunity to open a portal. An undetermined destination portal, an anchor point."  
" _What?_ That's total madness!"  
"It's the only way," Geralt repeated the words the elf himself had spoken only recently - while he had been willing to have Triss tortured. Geralt intended to free her.

At that moment Regis said: "Fascinating conversation, but excuse me for a moment", and then all that was left to see was his smoke form, which disappeared soon after.

"What's he up to now?"   
"I have no idea", Geralt admitted. "But now listen. This can work. You two distract the sorceress. Make sure Triss gets rid of the restraints - if I'm not mistaken, your silver sword contains dimeritium. If you strike at the right angle, you can break the bonds."  
"I know," Adan admitted to Geralt's surprise. "Works better than with lockpicks."  
Geralt didn't even want to know why the other witcher could pick locks in the first place.

"And assuming this actually works - I admit, with this vampire, we might have a chance. At least he won't be so easy to enchant. But still, the whole thing's insane. If you or Triss make a mistake, you end up in nowhere. Or you' II be blown to a thousand pieces."  
"Then nothing must go wrong", Geralt replied stubbornly.  
Adan tilted his head.  
"Maybe you are willing to take the risk for yourself. But for the Emperor?"  
"He will consent.“  
"He'd have to trust you a lot to do that. But … hey, you're not by any chance married after all? Secretly?"  
"Oh, shut up," Geralt growled.   
"When did you even come up with this brilliant plan?" Adan asked.  
„A few minutes ago," Geralt admitted without batting an eyelid.  
  
They were quiet for a moment. Geralt of course knew that the plan was insane. It wasn't even a plan, it was basically just a desperate attempt to take advantage of a possible opportunity. To use this one mistake the sorceress had apparently made - by underestimating two witchers at once. And he knew what risk he was taking, but also what risk he was exposing everyone else to. Triss would have been furious, but she would have been on his side in a second. Regis hadn't even tried to convince him with his usual cool, rational arguments. And as for Emhyr, Geralt had to admit that he wasn't quite as convinced as he had claimed to Adan. The man was not only understandably attached to his life, but of course also to his life's work. But the biggest variable in this equation was Adan. Why he was willing to help him was absolutely incomprehensible to Geralt - who was much more narrow-minded in this respect than he would have admitted to himself.

At that moment Regis returned and materialized before them.   
"Good heavens, I haven't been this fast since…well, in a long time", he noticed and smiled thinly.   
Then he stretched out a hand and held an object out to Geralt.   
It was the crystal from the elven ruins.

"How did you know where it was?" Geralt asked and took the crystal.   
"I knew which ruins you referred to. And it wasn't that hard to find", Regis replied.  
"But it's too big," Adan said. "It won't fit."  
"We just talked about the fact that you can use a sword in many different ways," Geralt muttered, while he placed the crystal on the floor and compared it with the crystal in the portable teleport.  
  
It appeared to him that Regis and Adan were holding their breath. He felt as if he himself was holding his breath, when he drew his sword and aimed for the right angle.  
He only had one shot.

Then he hit, and the steel struck the gemstone.  
It shattered, a clinking sound was heard, and then there were two pieces of the crystal.   
Geralt picked one of them up, compared it to the teleport again and said, "This is my way back."  
  
"Still fucking insecure," Adan said. "But if you really want to do this, and if the vampire here is really willing to mess with the sorceress..."  
"Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy," Regis replied, presenting a broad smile - something he usually refrained from doing, because his fangs could hardly be hidden in that case.   
"I prefer Regis. And yes, I am ready."  
Adan just stared at him. He couldn't even think of a cocky remark for this one.

Geralt pocketed the crystal shard, put the portable teleport on the ground and activated it with a sign.  
The portal set up within a very short time, an uncertain, blue glow, that had formed just outside the device.   
_That could actually lead everywhere,_ Geralt suddenly thought. If his assumptions were wrong, if this was just another trap...

But he didn't say it. The sheer fact that he, of all people, was willing to enter a possibly unsafe portal - with the prospect of an even more uncertain return - revealed a lot.

"Good luck," he said. "Just make sure we actually have a way back. As soon as possible."

He picked up the device and stepped into the portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might think: Geralt! What the hell? But just remember game-Geralt and all the things he's done. So can this really be the weirdest thing he's ever done?  
> (And yes, there are possibly no mountains in that area. Well NOW there are!)  
> 
> 
> The chapter title is from a song by Demons & Wizards. Please note that because of what happened in the first days of 2021, I deleted all Demons & Wizards songs from my playlists.


	26. When everything’s lost / There’s nothing to fear

**— 25 —**

**When everything’s lost / There’s nothing to fear  
**

Whatever Geralt had expected to see as soon as he stepped through the portal, it was certainly not this:   
A gaping chasm to his left and right, a destroyed bridge behind him - and a bunch of armed bandits in front of him.

At least twenty, maybe even more. Regis had said that bandits had set up their base here. But his ravens had unfortunately forgotten to mention the destroyed bridge - which cut them off from the mountain pass.

And Geralt realized that this was exactly the point, because all of this was staged. There should probably never have been an execution: He was _supposed_ to find the portable teleport, and the sorceress was counting on him being desperate enough to use it - and she was going to make sure he failed so close to the finish line. She had assumed that the other witcher would not betray him, instead free him to pull this off. That however, Geralt thought, was a pretty wild assumption on her part. And for what all this? So Assire could prove her worth to Emhyr, because he couldn't? He was so damned close, he was convinced that Emhyr was in that fort. And he had something that Assire certainly didn't know about, because she had never taken Regis into account: He had a possible way back.

But there were a hell of a lot of fellows with swords and axes, cut off from the pass. And most of them had seen him come through the portal. It closed immediately, and they had no idea that they would never be able to activate it once again. But these people had no understanding of magic. They only saw Geralt pocketing the box after the portal closed. And all they could tell was that this had to be a way out.

"Get him!" one of the guys yelled.

And then they attacked.

Geralt quickly looked behind him. The path led gently downhill at first, then steeper; a long and winding road, and usually a retractable suspension bridge led over it. It was a clever construction that made the fort an almost impregnable base. The bridge had apparently been lowered to supply the fort, but now it was completely destroyed. The chasm between the spur of the fort and the mountain pass was deep and too large to jump over. The bandits could have tried to build a makeshift bridge, but so far there were no signs of this.

Geralt looked ahead again. To the rear there was no possibility to retreat, and the plateau on which the fort was located was much narrower at this point than further ahead, where the building rose. He could only go forward. Another quick glance showed him that the terrain in front of him offered almost no retreat. If the guys all flocked together - or if only one of them had a crossbow - he might as well throw himself into the abyss.

But he wouldn't do that. Not if there was the slightest chance that Emhyr was actually in that old, weathered and partly almost ruined fort that loomed ahead of him. There was no going back, literally.  
To take on twenty armed men was madness. But everything about this was madness, and he would either go down with it, or make it clear to the sorceress once and for all that he was better not underestimated.   
  
So he drew the sword. He lowered his head, shifted his weight, went down on his knees very slightly, stretched out his hand - and then he put as much energy into an _Aard_ thrust as he could. The first five didn't just fall over, they literally flew through the air and took some more with them. It didn't take any imagination for the broken bones: Some of them were clearly visible. Not all of those men were badly injured, some of them would soon get up again, but the first wave was repelled.   
  
The next few came hesitantly, but since they all had no way out, they had no choice but to fight. In this respect, they behaved no differently than any other bandit pack: they were generally disorganized, and their fighting experience was largely limited to straightforward skirmishes with simple opponents.   
  
Geralt was no simple opponent. He was not only much faster than them, unlike most of these guys he knew his craft. He alternated between mills and feints, whirled in the middle of the advance of these mediocre swordsmen. He struck a semicircle that slashed the hamstrings of two of them. He killed two who came from the side, just by kneeling slightly and turning the upper body, the sword very close to his body.

And they still made the same mistakes: Instead of aiming at the only point where he was really unprotected - his head - they kept striking his sword. They just didn't seem to get it: Swordplay wasn't just about hitting the opponent's weapon. Those who would strike without attacking the neuralgic points would never really hit. Such attacks were easy to fend off, Ciri had already mastered this better than these idiots when she was only twelve years old.  
  
At some point Geralt no longer counted. He was more focused than he had been in a long time, and he mastered this dance so much better than they did. The first axe was thrown, and he raised the sword, and the clash of steel against steel echoed through night. The sound roared in his ears, and only now Geralt seemed to perceive the surroundings properly. His adrenaline level was so high - even without any potion, he hadn't even had time for it and only had some emergency potions with him anyway - that he had blanked out all sounds.

All around him there was screaming, the angry roar of men who did not understand how one man could take out so many of them. He was only one man, but he was much _more_ than a man, and that was the point that they never really understood. They were the kind of people who were quick to call him a mutant, but they had no idea what that actually entailed.

And so they went down, one by one. They were defeated by his will, and by his defiance, which refused to recognize that they were so many - actually too many. He did not think, there was no time to think, make plans, calculate attacks. What he did was rehearsed and learned; it was so much in his body, in his blood, that he could recall it whenever he needed to: Step forward. Step back. Pass - forward, back, so fast, again and again. Step to the side, raise the sword, block, turn, aim at the head. Aim for the supporting leg. Block, pass, step.   


If they could have fled, they would have fled - at least some of them. The few who had an axe and therefore thought they had an advantage, soon had to realize that this was not the case. If he had given them the chance, if they would have been capable enough, then maybe: The axe was a dangerous weapon against almost any kind of armor. Whoever knew how to use it would smash bones with it, even those of witchers, and whoever had once understood that the bones of witchers also broke like those of other people, could have the upper hand - with a bit of luck.

But Geralt did not let it happen. None of the axe carriers had a shield, and that was stupid. A good fighter would have hit with the shield, would have blocked the sword and filled the gap with the axe. But they were not that good, and they had no shields, and the axe was a heavy weapon with a short range.

And Geralt had his signs when they came too close to him - and they were enough for one or the other to succeed in coming close, as he lacked the means of escape. With a little more preparation, a little more time and the right elixir he would have reduced them to rubble. But he was more skilled with _Aard_ , more reliable, a rough, inelegant, but very effective way of defense. Maybe he pushed one or two of the bandits into the abyss, he didn't even know for sure. The roar was almost deafening in the meantime, and they started to hold torches into the fire and throw them at him - and that was when Geralt knew that it was almost over.

But he didn't count, he didn't pay attention to their number anymore. At some point, there was only one left. Maybe some had fled into the fortress, but in any case no one had come out of there. The last one was clearly the leader of this gang, which undoubtedly had caused some damage in the area - but would never do it again. Some lay whimpering on the ground, some were unconscious, most were just collateral damage that Geralt didn't care about.

Then there was the last of them. He was either the most cowardly of all - because he hadn't attacked yet - or the one who dared the most, which was usually the case. And he was the only one who stood between Geralt and the fort now.

Neither of them spoke a word. The bodies around told their own story. Do or die: That was the only truth for the man before him. He had a sword, and that's all Geralt would remember - he didn't care what the guy looked like, whether he was tall or short, a pimply milk-face or the wheathered face of the old fighter. It was the sword that interested Geralt, because it was the _last_ sword. A good, solid piece of forging - it was almost ridiculous that he noticed this and nothing else.

The man wore a light armour with a quilted gambeson; a simple, however decent protection. Yet it was one whose weaknesses Geralt knew well enough. But now, while he was focusing on this last opponent, he also knew that this one was much more rested than himself.

He had lost the hair band at some point, the bloody thing had probably fallen victim to some centrifugal forces. Sweaty hair stuck to his forehead, and he felt he was breathing slightly too fast - a consequence of the fact that he had to rely solely on his strength, mutations and skill and not on the support of witcher potions.  
  
Of course, his opponent had no idea of this, but surely it had not escaped his notice that the fight against all these men took its toll. But if he thought that gave him an advantage, he was wrong. He began to circle around Geralt, his sword stretched out from him: a barbaric claymore of Skellige, a weapon that was difficult to master. Geralt had never seen it in the hands of a man who didn't come from the islands, and the islands were not far away. But in the end he didn't care if the guy was from Skellige or had crawled out of the sewers of Novigrad.  
  
Geralt let himself be circled, it was pure show, and it gave him some air. Then the leader struck for the first time. The claymore needed space, but if guided well, it could be an extremely dangerous weapon. Geralt evaded, and the dance began again.

Forward, back. A quick step aside, dodge, strike. The other man wasn't that agile and not nearly as fast, but his strikes were powerful. The moment came when Geralt had to readjust the grip of the sword hand, and his dodging step came a second too late. The bandit hit him on his right shoulder, but he hardly felt it. It was almost as if he actually were under the influence of some kind of potion, but it was just pure adrenaline, and Geralt knew that he would notice the hit later on, even if he had only been grazed. However, he had damaged the armour at this spot, but that just couldn't be changed.

But he also knew that it was time to finish the job. Time was running out for him. He wanted to find Emhyr, bring him back safely, hunt down the damned sorceress and most of all, just sleep, for days, if possible.He had no idea what was to come, no idea that his wish was like a foreshadowing. He would not have cared, he had run away from destiny long enough.

The hand moved the sword, the head switched off, the body took over. Forward, back, dodge, strike. Once more he didn't let the claymore come near him. A turn, a lunge, the sword came sideways and so fast that the other didn't see it. The head was always the weak point, the best helmets could do little to help, and this one didn't wear a helmet. And as gruesome as it was, it was a deadly profession, a craft without mercy, and sometimes it cost the head.

When that was over, he never turned. He did not look behind him to see what he had done. It didn't matter. What was important was only what lay ahead of him: an old, half-destroyed fortress that had served the military at some point and was now just a pile of meaningless stones. Meaningless, as long as Emhyr wasn't in there.

It was pitch dark, the moon had disappeared behind some clouds. Geralt groped for the door. It was easy to open. Inside, a spacious hall awaited him, from which some doors led off. There were some half collapsed walls, a torch holder on one wall, with the remains of an old torch that could be lit with _igni -_ and a crooked, spiral staircase. Only the stairs seemed interesting to him. He took the torch from its holder and looked up.  
  
Of course, Assire could have taken Emhyr anywhere, if he even was here. But her penchant for drama, for the game, all this indicated to Geralt that she may have brought Emhyr as high up as possible. Be it to make some quirky statement, or just because she liked it that way. He had given up on trying to figure out the woman's motives.   
  
The steps of the stairs led steeply upwards and were partly blocked by stones that had fallen from the walls. He had to climb over them carefully, and it took him longer than expected to reach the top floor.

At least this was the end now - once there had probably been another level, but the roof had collapsed halfway and blocked the remains of another staircase.

There was a door at this landing. He had passed many doors. But this was the last door. The last room. And Geralt thought that if Emhyr wasn't there, if this was another trap ... that he didn't know what to do. That he had no other option. He _had_ to be there. His love had to be there. Surprised, Geralt realized that he had finally admitted it to himself, although he had already said it once, but had doubted for so long whether he actually meant it: That Emhyr was his _love_ , not only his lover.

  
_Idiot_ , Geralt thought. _Was that so hard?  
_He could almost hear Emhyr's voice saying that to him.

And then he put his hand on the door. And found that it was locked.  
  
It was not easy to feel his heartbeat. It could be irritating, for some people it was also scary, especially that his heart was beating so much slower. But now he felt his heartbeat accelerate. And this was not due to the fight.

The door was locked. But Geralt didn't need a lock pick and he didn't need a key either. He stretched out his hand - and smashed the door with an enormous thrust of _Aard_. **  
** Geralt climbed over the destroyed remains of the door. Then he stood in a small, dark room, whose window did hardly anything to light up the surroundings. But in the dim glow of the flickering torch, Geralt saw him. He was here. Emhyr was really here.

He sat on the floor, his back to the wall, knees tightened, a casual gesture by his standards - but the room was completely empty, so there was nothing else where he could have sat.

Emhyr had looked up when Geralt had taken the door apart. He didn't seem surprised to see him.   
In fact, he seemed almost angry, when he stood up and faced him now.   
„Bloody hell, you really can't stay out of trouble even once, can you?" he snapped at him.

It was the second time Geralt heard him swearing. In the past - actually not even that long ago - it might have irritated him. But now he knew him so much better, and even if Emhyr lost his composure ever so rarely, Geralt knew he had been worried. He had been sitting in the darkness for hours, without knowing where he was or where Geralt was and what was happening, and the damned sorceress could have suggested all sorts of things to him.

Geralt had been worried too, he noticed only now how much, when the tension dropped from him and he grinned - this time he _actually_ grinned.   
„Love you too“, he said.  
And then he threw the torch on the floor and pulled Emhyr into his arms.

They stood like this for a while, holding each other, resting their foreheads together, eyes locked onto each other. Geralt noticed by Emhyr's strong grip that he was in control again. Like Regis, he had needed this embrace, though for a different reason.

He only reluctantly released himself from the hug, gently pushing Emhyr a bit away from him, while he still held him by the shoulders, and watched him, examined him. Emhyr looked tired, and the dried blood on his forehead made Geralt quite angry, but apart from that he seemed fine.

"Are you okay?" he asked anyway.  
"You are asking _me_?" Emhyr replied softly, raised a hand and ran it over Geralt's cheek. "You look like you had quite a fight."  
"Fell down the stairs," muttered Geralt. "And the bunch of bandits out there were a bit of a nuisance too."  
Emhyr snorted in amusement.  
  
"You still shouldn't have come“, he then said. "Now we're both stuck here - I'm pretty sure that's what she wanted."  
"Honestly, I haven't the slightest idea what that woman wants," Geralt replied. "Except for you keeping some promise."  
Emhyr narrowed his eyes.  
"That's what she told me, but it's nonsense."  
"Well," Geralt drawled. "Speaking of which - you and a sorceress? It came as a bit of a surprise.“

Emhyr's facial expression could hardly be interpreted in the pale torchlight, although Geralt was not an arm's length away from him. But his voice might have sounded a little tense, as he answered.

"You had your fair share of sorceresses, and I never asked for details."  
"And I never demanded that we talk about every bed bunny," Geralt replied, a little sharper than intended.  
"She was not..."  
"Neither were mine, that's exactly the point."

He reached into his pockets and pulled out the ring.  
"What is this?" asked Emhyr, who indeed gave the impression as if he had never seen the ring before. Geralt frowned.  
"I actually thought you could tell me."  
Emhyr took the ring, looked closely at it, read the engraving and then looked at Geralt.

"She obviously believed that I had promised her marriage. Which I have not."

Emhyr had never lied to him. Not since they had been together, anyway. Before that, he'd only ever been the Emperor. It was inevitable that he would not tell him everything, sometimes stretch the truth, maybe. And before that …it was too long ago to matter. Now he was Emhyr, and in this moment he was nothing more. And in those dark eyes, Geralt couldn’t find anything he wouldn’t believe.

"Then why the ring?“ he asked anyway.  
"It was obviously meant for me," Emhyr replied thoughtfully. "Look at the engraving."

Geralt took the ring, and although he knew exactly what the engraving said, he looked at it again.   
And then he understood.  
"A and E, not E and A. If you had given her a ring, your name would have come first."  
"Exactly. And I did not and I would not have."

Emhyr ran his fingers, slightly irritated, through his dark hair, which only strengthened the impression that he looked tired.  
"I ... was lonely, Geralt. Never alone, but lonely. And in some ways, she was a lot like you."  
Geralt raised his eyebrows.  
"Flattering. You're comparing me to a madwoman."  
"She wasn't always like that, you idiot," Emhyr replied gently. "She was different. A sharp mind, a wise counsel. Above all, she didn't seem particularly impressed with me."  
"Understandable", mumbled Geralt. Emhyr didn't go for it.

"You would never have bent your knee to me. She had to, of course, but in many ways, she didn't. She didn't flatter me, she didn't follow me."  
"She was not easy to conquer," Geralt guessed.   
"You see? A similarity," Emhyr replied quietly.   
Geralt said nothing to that. His amber eyes shone in the torchlight. This time it was indeed amber, Emhyr thought. Not easy to say, and not easy to conquer.

"And then she wanted more?“ Geralt asked, but Emhyr shook his head.  
"She doesn't know it, but in a way, she helped me realize what I really wanted. And once I understood that, I began to withdraw. It shouldn't have been a problem. She was not indifferent to me, but I was not looking for an _Empress_ , for heaven's sake. We never talked about such things. The mere assumption is ridiculous."  
"Obviously she saw it differently," Geralt said. "She probably realized you had lost interest. Maybe she hadn't gone over the top at the time, but she must have already made plans to persuade you to marry her."  
"Well, whatever it was, she got it wrong."

"The fact that she was about to be murdered hardly improved the whole thing," Geralt muttered.   
"It wasn't my idea," Emhyr said firmly.   
"You don't have to convince _me_ of that," Geralt replied. „Anyway, we need to get out of here.“  
  
Emhyr watched him as he pulled out the portable teleport - he too recognized the device immediately.   
"Is this the same ..."  
"I don't know", Geralt said briefly, while he removed the used crystal from the device and tried to fix the trimmed crystal shard inside. It fit just barely, and Emhyr felt the whole thing was quite uncertain.  
"Do you really think this will work?"

Geralt cast a sign on the crystal. Nothing happened. He cursed. He tried again, this time with _Igni_ , which made the mostly metal box glow red for a short time - and now the crystal glowed, too. Behind the apparatus, a portal built up, a little flickering at first.

"Where does it lead to?" Emhyr asked.   
"With a little luck, back to the royal court," Geralt explained. "If they managed to free Triss. If Triss was able to build a portal as an anchor point."  
"Who are you talking about? That's a little much 'if'. Geralt, you've told me so many times that you don't like portals. That thing …" Emhyr pointed seriously to the blue glowing portal - "could lead anywhere or nowhere. It could kill us."  
"Then we'll die together."  
Emhyr raised his eyebrows.  
"Very romantic. Is there no other way?"  
"The pass is buried. This whole damn fort was full of bandits who would have torn me to pieces for this teleport."  
"I don't know. Why can't Merigold open a teleport directly to here?"  
"Because she doesn’t know a thing about this place. That would be just as insecure - or probably even more insecure than an anchor point for another portal.“

"I don't like it," said Emhyr.   
"Me neither. But I told someone else that you were willing to take the risk."  
"Bold," Emhyr replied. "I seem to have no choice, but it's madness, Geralt."  
"I know that," Geralt said calmly.  
Emhyr reached for his hand.   
"Then let's go," he said.  
  
"Wait," said Geralt, "you'll _never_ go anywhere again …“ - and with these words he reached for the dagger that he always carried on his thigh - "… without this. It was stupid not to take it right away, I hope you know that."  
"I know," Emhyr replied, taking the dagger and pocketing it.  
"You admit it? Are you sure you're all right?" Geralt teased him.  
"Shut up.“

"If you want to kiss me one last time, now would be the best time," Geralt replied with a crooked smile.   
"You're _really_ crazy if you think I'm going to kiss you now," said Emhyr, and without further ado he pulled Geralt through the portal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drama, action and a reunion! I'm pleased. We're getting closer to the end now, so enjoy this little piece of happiness before I destroy it again ...
> 
> There's a song for this chapter, a beautiful orchestral version of ["Toxicity"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL09wRp9pwg) by System of a down. Bossfight at about minute 3:00 :)
> 
> Or you take this very nice cover version of ["You're gonna go far kid"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67G_iQuMgN0) for the right mood ... :)
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "This storm".


	27. And once again / The battle’s fought

**— 26 —**

**And once again / The battle’s fought  
**

Adan was counting on the big entrance, when he appeared in the throne room. He knew, of course, that the room had a second entry - right next to the throne. But the element of surprise was already planned for the vampire. And besides, he wanted to see the surprised face of the sorceress too much, when she discovered that Geralt had figured out what the box really was.

Only that he was completely wrong, of course. He pushed open the doors to the throne room, where Triss was standing with a face distorted by pain and Assire was sitting casually on the throne. The sorceress looked at him immediately. However, she spoiled his appearance thoroughly.   
  
****"Ah, the cat school witcher," she said with a fleeting smile, which did not make her any more attractive.   
"I guess you're not bringing me what I asked for?"

Adan, who had entered the room with such verve, suddenly stopped.   
An unpleasant thought crossed his mind.  
As if she had read his thoughts - and the idea wasn't that far-fetched - Assire said: "It's a little disappointing. Your kind of witchers has a certain reputation, as you will not have failed to notice.The other one, the _Butcher of Blah-blah-blah_ , that's rat shit against what you are said to be. And yet you took his side."

Adancursed himself inwardly for his stupidity.

"Just as I predicted," the sorceress continued. "I admit that your stone-cold vengeance attitude was quite convincing. But in the end, they say blood is thicker than water."  
"We have nothing in common," Adan replied between clenched teeth.  
"You seem to be wrong about that. No matter who created you, in some of you unfortunate creatures, the feelings could not be completely erased. That was immediately visible in both of you. Only you both couldn’t recognize it in each other, it was actually quite amusing."

"What's all this gibberish?" hissed the elf. "You tricked us. Nice. Now what?"

He squinted at Triss and assessed whether he could overcome the distance before the other sorceress cast any spells on him. Maybe, he thought.But it would hardly be enough to free Triss from the restraints.  
Suddenly he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the fleeting smoke form of the vampire approaching from behind, barely visible to the human eye, and decided to hold the sorceress back a little longer.

"So, what's the brilliant plan? What happens after the teleport?“  
Assire shook her head, wanted to answer, but then she suddenly frowned, turned around jerkily - and found herself facing Regis, who had meanwhile changed back into his humanoid form.

And she laughed.

That actually sent a shiver down Adan's spine, but he seized the moment and ran to Triss, hissed to her to keep her hands as far apart as possible, and raised his sword. Triss understood instantly, and although it hurt like hell, she stretched the bonds as far as she could.

Assire might have been surprised for a moment - Regis might have thought he even saw a hint of fear in her face. But she quickly regained control of herself. A single hand movement, a short murmur was enough, and she had cast put a protective spell on herself. It would be invisible to the human eye, but clearly visible to everyone in the room: a thin, slightly shiny layer in the air that had wrapped itself around the sorceress.  
  
Triss, who had regained some more freedom of movement and, with Adan's help, tried to release the cuffs completely from her wrists, looked up and asked herself once again how Assire managed it. If they all survived this, it was probably a good idea to persuade the Emperor to have the druids investigated again. If they had succeeded in transforming a relatively ordinary sorceress into someone who seemed to be able to cast complex spells offhand ... It would probably be better to keep such possibilities under lock and key.  
  
"Amusing, the vampire who interfered last time" was now heard from Assire.  
But she sounded anything but amused.

"Didn't go too well, did it? Convenient, some of your qualities. Also that they can be used against your own kind. It was a little surprising, though, that your friend was so willing to play along. But everyone has a weakness - and his was just that ridiculous legend of a second sphere conjunction."

Regis was silent for a moment and, contrary to his usually so calm and cheerful manner, let his fangs show.   
"He was no friend of mine," he finally replied.   
"Well, certainly not anymore. It'll probably take him a while to recover from being mauled like that by Emhyr's little one."

Regis decided, against his better judgment, to test her shield, and he extended his claws and reached out. There was an almost metallic sound when he hit the invisible barrier. It flickered slightly.   
Regis smiled.   
Adan, who could see this clearly from his position, did not find a smiling vampire very appealing.   
"That doesn't seem very durable, my dear," Regis said. "And you will find that I can be very patient."

"Wait!" Triss shouted. Her hands were finally freed of the dimeritium, and she was rubbing her aching wrists.  
"What is there in that fort? If you lured Geralt into a trap - what happens there?"  
  
"He'll bite off more than he can chew", the sorceress retorted. "I guess that's all over by now."  
"An ambush?" growled the feline, which attracted Assire’s attention.    
"Why does it bother you? You said it yourself, you have nothing in common."  
"Well, too bad I don't believe you," Adan hissed.   
"I don't care what you believe", Assire replied and moved slightly away from Regis. But he kept up, circling her - he suspected she was planning something.  
"There's no way out from there. Looks like I alone can save the Emperor“, the sorceress continued, utterly self-satisfied.

Adan grinned wickedly.  
"Only that they _do_ have a way out."  
He turned to Triss and said, "Can you open a portal that is an anchor point, a destination portal?"  
Triss looked at him in amazement.

Assire opened her eyes wide.  
"The crystal only works once," she called out. But the uncertainty in her voice was clearly noticeable.   
Regis tried his luck again and struck at her shield. Assire withdrew further. She looked around jerkily, as if she was looking for a way out.   
"You are forgetting the crystal in the elven ruins," Adan said.   
Then he realized that he had said too much. Because the sudden understanding was clearly visible in the sorceress' eyes.

Triss saw it too. She raised her arms, ready to build the anchor point portal - even though she thought it was madness and even though she just couldn't believe that Geralt would be willing to take such a risk. But Assire was faster again. And even Regis, who possessed superhuman velocity, was surprised by this.

Assire built a portal - and it seemed so incredibly easy the way she did it, Triss still couldn't believe it -  
and almost simultaneously, she threw something on the floor. It happened so fast that nobody really paid attention to it, because now she turned to her portal.

Regis grabbed her as fast as lightning, and indeed the shield gave way and burst in a short sparkle. In the blink of an eye everyone acted simultaneously: Regis clawed into her robe, Triss created a portal herself, Adan stormed towards Assire. But she tore herself away from Regis, even ripping her robe - but the moment was enough to buy her time: she jumped into the portal. It closed at once.  
  
"Shit!" Triss yelled rather unladylike, and both Regis and the elf looked at her in astonishment.   
"Why couldn't you keep your mouth shut?" Triss shouted at Adan. "Now she has built up _her_ portal faster."  
"Yeah, well, she escaped, that’s crap, but …“ Adan started, but Triss interrupted him.   
"That's not the point. Geralt can't use my portal as an anchor anymore. She will have teleported near him, and that means her portal has interposed. The portable teleport will choose this portal first. After that, the crystal will be empty again, and he won't have another one.“

"But your portal is aligned?" Adan asked confused.   
"But that's not how it works!" Triss shouted annoyed. "It merely represents a possible target. It's a kind of emergency exit, something like a last resort, which some mages use in extreme situations by linking an insecure portal to a secure one. It's unsafe, and the way Geralt wanted to use it, pure madness. I never should have told him about it in the first place, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess right now. Anyway, it won't work if someone interposes another portal."

"That means wherever she teleported to now, it will become the exit used by the portable teleport?" Regis interjected.  
Triss nodded.  
"Shit", the feline echoed. "But we know where they are, don't we?"  
"Even if they're still in that fort, we can't get there," Triss said furiously. "Unless you also want me to open a teleport to nowhere. That's too risky. We can approach the place piece by piece - it'll take some time, and that'll use up a lot of energy, but I don't see any other possibility right now..."

"Maybe we don't have to," Regis replied thoughtfully.   
A small piece of cloth was hanging from one of his claws - he had torn it from Assire's robe when she had torn herself away from him. He retracted the claws and held the cloth out to Triss.

"A locator spell? That could work," Triss said agitatedly.    
"You can open a direct portal if you locate the sorceress?" Adan asked.   
But then something distracted his gaze. He looked down and noticed what Assire had dropped just before she left. It was a small, silver box with holes punched in it.

"What is this?" he asked.   
"Don't touch it!" Triss warned, and when Regis noticed that the witcher bent down anyway and was about to grab the object, he held him by the arm in a flash.

"Perhaps it would be better to listen to her this time," he remarked.   
"I'm not to be accused of not listening to a sorceress," the elf grumbled. "But fine, I won't touch anything."

Triss came closer while Regis bent over the box with interest.  
"Looks like some kind of … jewelry box, maybe?“ Regis said in a thoughtful tone.  
"Too small for that," replied Triss. "But I'm sure she dropped it for a reason."  
"If you're right, it's because she wants us to touch it and maybe blow it up," Adan interjected.   
"So step aside, maybe it's explosive. We should just get it out of the way."  
He held his sword in front of him and swung out.  
„No, no, don't do that!" Triss shouted, but too late: The witcher swung his sword and knocked the little box away with it.   


Triss took a step back in dismay.  
But the box did not explode. It hit the wall and came to a halt right under the windows.

For a moment, everyone held their breath.  
"Maybe it was a dud," Regis said.   
"But it doesn't even look like a bomb," Adan retorted, who had approached the object again.   
"Maybe it was nothing," Triss said impatiently. "Let me try this locator spell."

Adan pushed the box once more with his sword.  
"I just can't believe she'd do anything without a reason," he muttered.  
The sword scratched the perforated surface of the object, and suddenly the lid opened.  
  
"There's nothing in there," Adan said, stunned. That is, he wanted to say it. But at the same moment a deafening, shrill scream sounded from the now open box, so loud that Adan - who was standing right next to the object, after all - dropped the sword and covered his ears. He writhed in pain, the sensitive hearing of the witcher suffered an overload.  
But the other two did not fare much better: they too covered their ears. The noise was deafening, a scream of an extremely high pitch.  
After a few seconds it was over.

Regis was the first to find his voice again.  
"My goodness, what was that?"   
Triss just shook her head. She glanced at Adan, who looked like he was going to throw up.   
"Are you all right?" she asked.  
The witcher looked up, surprised that her voice sounded almost sympathetic - after all, he had triggered that hideous sound, so he had expected her to be angry. Perhaps she was, but he realized that she probably knew better than anyone else how sensitive a witcher's hearing was.

He bent down to pick up the sword - a bad idea, as he realized, actually dazed for a moment - and at the same moment he heard Regis say, "Do you hear that?" And it was pure luck that the elf hadn't come up yet, because at that very moment, all the windows in the room shattered, and a huge swarm of creatures flew into the room, screaming.  
  
Adan threw himself to the ground, Regis went into full vampire mode and Triss already had a fireball in her hand.

The room was literally flooded with harpies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from "All the king's horses"


	28. Don’t dance in the darkness / You may stumble and you’re sure to fall

**— 27 —**

**Don’t dance in the darkness / You may stumble and you’re sure to fall**

"What _was_ that?"

Ciri wiped her sword unpretentiously on her trousers, whereupon Yennefer gave her a disapproving look. But Yennefer also had no answer for the chaos around them.

They stood in the spacious courtyard of the Brugge royal court, surrounded by the wounded and the losses of a bandit attack that had just been repelled. The King's guards had acted quickly, but could not prevent a whole horde of surprisingly well-armed strays from almost entering the castle. Ciri and Yennefer had averted the worst - and in doing so, they had thrown the court into great confusion and fear, although Ciri was inclined to believe that this was mainly due to the actual attack.

They had been around far too long for Ciri's taste. Surely she had ended her original visit quite abruptly to help Geralt and Emhyr, and Yennefer was needed to smooth the waves until she finally returned. Especially since Ciri hadn't really revealed much - not everyone had to know how vulnerable the Imperial Palace had been.

It was no secret that Ciri - although she really tried hard - did not show much patience when it came to the finer points of politics. But when she secretly wished for some kind of change, she had not had anything like that in mind.  
  
"I don't know," Yennefer finally replied.   
The sorceress, dressed impeccably as always in her favorite colors black and white, glanced briefly at Ciri's appearance, displeased, and said, "You should change, dear. We will have to give the King an explanation, but better not if you have blood on you".  
"Well, it will hardly escape the King's notice that blood has been shed at his court, so I couldn't care less whether he sees it on me," Ciri replied defiantly.

Yennefer sighed.   
"Ciri, one day you will be the most amazing Empress of the continent, but until then, you should listen to me."  
  
Ciri set about giving a witty answer, but was interrupted by a man from the Kingsguard.   
"We believe this is for you, my lady," said the man and handed her an envelope.

"A letter? Where does it come from?" Yennefer asked and stared piercingly at the guard.   
"The leader of … this gang had it with him," the man replied uncertainly - a rather typical behavior towards the sorceress. He pointed to the back of the compound where some prisoners had been rounded up. One of them looked at Yennefer very provocatively and grinning.  
"I'll deal with him later," she said, waving the guard away.

"My name is on it," Ciri muttered in amazement and showed the envelope to the sorceress. "But the seal tells me nothing."  
"Nor does it mean anything to me. Well, open it."  
  
Ciri broke the seal and pulled a folded piece of parchment from the envelope. Yennefer stood beside her and peered at the paper.  
"What does this mean?" she asked, frowning.   
" _Enjoy my little surprise,_ " Ciri read aloud. "What is this nonsense?"  
"Someone has deliberately let this ridiculous gang loose on the court," Yennefer said.   
"Maybe, but why?" asked Ciri.   
"To distract from something, perhaps. I just wonder what from?" mumbled Yennefer and looked around searchingly.

"Maybe from this," Ciri suddenly called out, pointing north. There, the walls of the court were closest to the surrounding forest - and from there, dozens of fire arrows flew towards them.  
Ciri grabbed her sword more firmly and thought: " _This will not please the King at all._ “

Chaos broke out in the court.

—

This time Geralt had actually closed his eyes when he went through the portal. He noticed by Emhyr's tighter grip on his hand that something wasn't going as planned. When he opened his eyes, he was glad that neither of them had been split into a thousand pieces, but what he saw was simply not the throne room of the royal court of Cidaris.  
  
The portal they had walked through was not quite the anchor he had expected. Instead, they had landed on the other side of the destroyed bridge, on the mountain pass - and on the narrowest side of it. The bridge was behind them, the portal had opened just a hair's breadth from the edge. Directly in front of them the path lowered slightly, then there was a steep bend, then the pass went down even steeper to a small, slightly wider plateau, then down again. The serpentine shape prevented the ascent with horses, but additionally the path was quite tricky in the dark. On the opposite side there was only a steep rock face, just above a side arm of the river Adalatte.

But it was not really the mountain pass that interested Geralt. In front of them stood Assire var Anahid - a bit away, right at the place where the path made a bend. She seemed to be angry. Fine, Geralt thought - because he was certainly pissed off, too.  
  
"I have no idea why you are still alive," she hissed at him.   
"Well, sorry to disappoint you," he said calmly.   
"But it certainly _is_ a disappointment," replied the sorceress.

She looked at the two of them, still holding hands.  
"Really, my dear, I expected more from you," she said disapprovingly in Emhyr's direction.

Geralt released himself from Emhyr's grip and positioned in front of him, the sword still loose in his hand, but everything about him made it clear that he was ready to use it anytime.  
"I've had enough of this," he said. "This must stop now."

"I think so, too," Emhyr returned, putting one hand on Geralt's shoulder and now, in turn, pushed himself in front of him to face Assire.  
"It must stop. I don't know what you were thinking, but you have done enough damage for your sick fantasies now."

"My _sick_ fantasies?"  
Her figure was barely distinguishable from the dark surroundings. Again and again, clouds pushed in front of the stars and the moon. But the sorceress’ eyes seemed to sparkle, they had an almost unnatural shine about them. Indeed, her eyes were the most remarkable thing about her - apart from her vengefulness and her unusually strong magical powers.  
"You made a promise, Emhyr, and I intend to collect on that promise."

"This is ridiculous," he replied. "I have never..."  
"You promised me a new life," she said, interrupting him. "I obviously imagined this new life differently than you intended, but still."

Emhyr frowned.  
"That was quite a long time ago, but didn't you realize that I was referring to a..."  
"Sure," she hissed, now truly annoyed, "at _some_ _point_ I realized that you wanted to expel me. Somewhere where you found me more _useful_."

Geralt, who had positioned himself next to Emhyr in the meantime despite the narrow pass, watched his face intensely. But like almost always he couldn't tell anything from his facial expression.  
Emhyr said nothing.

"You probably thought you couldn't possibly keep me with you, after you found out where your real _inclinations_ were - but to dump me in some insignificant kingdom, Emhyr? That hurt. When you spoke of my new life, I was so happy at first" - and in that moment the shadow of a memory covered her face, that was visible even in the pale light - „...and then you destroyed everything. But that you then wanted to have me killed, really, I can't let you get away with that."  
Now her voice was dripping with sarcasm.   
"I did not do that," Emhyr said firmly. "Now tell me what you want."

Geralt knew this voice - he had heard it often enough when Emhyr had to talk to people who tired him. It was his “Get to the point, or something very unpleasant will happen“ voice.

"I thought that was clear by now," Assire replied coolly. "I want what I'm entitled to."  
"You are not entitled to anything."  
"You see, I think you're wrong there. I think I've proven that I can be invaluable to you. I have laid the kingdom of Cidaris at your feet, you could be a little more grateful."

Emhyr had no idea what she meant by that, and Geralt didn't intend to tell him now of all times that his negotiating partner was dead. That was chaos for another day.

"I can help you expand your empire. Maybe, in time, I can forgive you that one as well", she said with a scornful look at Geralt. He only raised his brows.   
"In fact“, Emhyr replied, curt and cool, and now it was clear that he was really, truly exasperated.   
"I think I have to decline."  
"Maybe I can make your decision a little easier“, said Assire.

"I think we've had enough.“  
Geralt stepped forward, raised his sword, walked several steps towards her, fully aware that he was facing an extremely capable sorceress. But he had just destroyed her little toy soldiers, and he finally had enough of her.

She laughed again, and the unpleasant noise bounced off the mountain wall and created a disgusting echo.

"What are you going to do, stick me with your little needle? You'll have to get to me first, you bastard!"   
Now she had lost her composure, her face twisted into a hateful grimace, and she raised her hands and threw a tremendous burst of energy at him. But Geralt was fast, and so he met her power in turn with _Aard_ , and the two bursts of energy collided.

"Get behind me," he called to Emhyr over the deafening roar, and the latter surprisingly reacted immediately and stepped back carefully, as far as he dared to approach the edge of the abyss.  
  
Geralt shifted his footing, but couldn't prevent from slipping slightly. He couldn't possibly stand up against Assire with magic - and he couldn't keep up the sign for much longer.   
He thrust the sword into the ground to get a better grip, but he felt his energy waning and he soon would have to give up the sign. But surprisingly, Assire suddenly stopped her advance, and when her magic no longer stood against his, he almost lost his footing.

The moon became visible again, the clouds moved away, and Assire's facial expression made clear, that she had actually expected Geralt to be thrown off balance by her action. But once again he didn't want to give her an advantage. Fast as lightning he pulled up his sword and ran towards her.

Suddenly she repeated her energetic attack - he hadn't seriously expected that she would be able to do it again in such a short time. How much he had underestimated her, he realized only too late. For once again she hurled a burst of energy at him, and it was not a bit weaker than before, as if this magic had cost her nothing at all. Geralt was thrown back, tried to find a hold, pushed the sword into the ground again - it tore a track into the soil and he came dangerously close to the edge of the abyss.

But just before that, she stopped her magic again, and when the energy decreased, Geralt fell on his knees in order not to tumble backwards. He quickly looked behind him. The abyss was only a finger's breadth away from his boots. It went steeply down to the next section of the mountain pass, maybe about 30 feet deep.

"Stop it!" Emhyr said in a dangerously calm voice, and he stepped forward.  
"Emhyr..."   
He just glanced at Geralt and shook his head very slightly.  
_Do not try to dissuade me._ It was unspoken, but very clear.  
"Come to your senses. You've really done enough“, he said to Assire.  
  
Behind him, Geralt slowly rose again and stepped away from the edge.

"You think so?" the sorceress replied casually.   
"I think we will come to an agreement," said Emhyr.   
"Oh," she said with interest, "and what would that be like?"  
"Let us talk about it calmly, and we shall see," he replied.

Geralt also knew this voice: it was his “you'll do what I want sooner or later“ voice. He knew it well.   
But it seemed that Assire knew it, too.

"Yes, we'll see," she repeated, and she smiled her cheerless smile.  
And then, out of the wrist, in an almost careless movement, she hurled another burst of energy at Geralt.

This time he had nothing to oppose.

The force threw him backwards and over the edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from "Don't talk to strangers."


	29. The will is strong / Can I show you fear?

**— 28 —**

**The will is strong / Can I show you fear?**

"No!" Emhyr yelled, fell to his knees at the edge, supported his arms on the stony soil and looked down.   
He couldn't see much in the dark. What he saw was hardly more than an outline, a motionless shadow. Geralt couldn't have survived such a fall, witcher or not.

Emhyr clawed his hands into the sharp stones of the mountain edge, until his knuckles turned white and his skin tore open and his fingers bled. Only then he stopped, rose slowly and stepped away from the edge.

Assire had watched him in silence, perhaps a little astonished.  
"Look at it this way," she said callously, "he won't stand in our way now."  
"Stand in _your_ way, isn’t that what you mean" he replied just as insensitively. Oh, he felt many things right now, but she did not need to know that.  
"You must finally realize that it's the same,“ Assire said.   
  
"What more do you want?" Emhyr asked quietly.   
"Oh come on, don't get melodramatic. Maybe he satisfied your baser instincts, but I bet your empire is more important to you anyway," she snarled at him.

Emhyr was silent for a moment, lost in thought, perhaps. Only that wasn't true. He was a quick thinker. Maybe she had forgotten that.  
"You're probably right, that is very important to me," he answered, as he slowly came closer. The clouds had finally cleared and the night became starry. In the moonlight, he could now see Assire clearly, and she saw him too. She did not like what she saw. There was no sign of his loss on his face - which didn't surprise her much, since she thought that this whole _affair_ could have been little more than hot air anyway. But there was also nothing else: no anger, no fear, nothing at all. This did not mean anything good.

Assire frowned and reached out to him in a dismissive gesture.  
"Don't come any closer," she said, a little uneasy. "I don't want to hurt you."  
"But you wanted me all to yourself," Emhyr countered. "If you did not want to hurt me, you should not have done what you did. I'm trying to figure out how - if - I could forgive you."  
  
A small, fine smile surrounded her face. She didn't want him to see it, because this smile lacked the pomposity she had shown before. It was almost real, and she didn't want - not yet - to show that he could still have that effect on her. But it was too late, even if she didn’t realize it. He _had_ seen it. He could see right through her now.

"Maybe you should ask yourself if I can forgive _you_."  
"I don't know how I can convince you I had nothing to do with what happened to you," said Emhyr, and his voice sounded almost soft now. "I am truly sorry. But, you know, it is all a little overwhelming. What you did, all the things you did... I understand now what you _meant_ to do. You've really proven that you're capable of greatness."

It almost sounded like gibberish to his ears, and for a moment, Emhyr feared that she had figured him out. But he had always been a natural born orator, when it mattered. And even if much of what was said about him was unfoundedly exaggerated, there were things he had commissioned, things he had approved and things he had done, for which he was feared. And rightly so.   
  
"You see that now?" she asked softly.   
He nodded.  
"I'm not saying that I approve," he continued. His voice was yet without any emotion, he noticed, and that was not what she wanted to hear. He tried again. He could be extremely persuasive, he knew that. And words were now anything he had left. _Almost_ anything.

"Not everything, at least. We'll need time."  
"We?" the Sorceress interrupted him. She had allowed him to get even closer. He was now almost at the bend where she stood, waiting, anticipating.    
"Wasn't that what you wanted?" he asked gently.

And he could see that her doubts were slowly dissolving. He still had it in him, although he found it astonishing that she was so easily impressed after all. She had done _so_ much to harm him, so much destruction and suffering, so many dead - and he forbade himself to think about Geralt at that moment. It would have been too treacherous. Anyway, with everything she had done, it had obviously always been about him. Her talk of destroying his empire - all just to convince him to listen to her, to get him to acknowledge that he had wronged her? Emhyr still didn't know what had happened to her. How she had survived. But whatever it was, it was a huge mistake of fate.  
  
"It was what I wanted," she admitted. "But it's a little late, don't you think?"  
"But is it too late?" he asked. He looked around, pointing vaguely into the darkness behind him, and said, "You did all this for me, didn't you?"

She nodded, a little cautiously, as if she was still not completely convinced that he was really giving her credit. And she did well to be cautious, for at that moment he really would have done anything to convince her. She was so sure of herself, that she didn't even realize that he really had nothing to lose anymore. Assire had forgotten his daughter again. She actually believed that what he had built over all those years was more important to him than anything, _anyone_ else - but he knew that the empire was not lost, because he had Cirilla. To threaten him that she would take away his life's work, even though he knew it would one day be in good hands, was stupid. He did not ask for more power. What he had once started he would continue, simply because he was good at it and yes, because he had built something worthwhile. But that would continue even without him, it was already a tremendous legacy. She still underestimated his daughter. Yet what had really meant something to him, she had destroyed. That was what she didn't understand and would never understand.   
  
"You've done too much," said Emhyr. "It will take me time to forget it."  
He looked to the edge of the pass, and he did not have to fake the pain, though it was infinitely difficult to show her. But now he did it on purpose, which was almost worse than suppressing it.

"Oh," she said, actually surprised. She reached out her arms to him. "You are _sad_. I have taken something away from you. But I can give you so much more, you'll see. Do you need comforting?"  
She said it without mockery, in that moment, and in her twisted mental state, she actually meant it. She had done _everything_ for him. All this time she had changed her mind again and again: She wanted to destroy him, she wanted him back, she wanted... at some point she almost didn't know herself what she wanted.

Assire thought for a moment that he would not be happy, when he found out what she had planned for his daughter. Maybe he'd resent her little attack when he found out. But she could _still_ change her mind, even on this matter - her plan for Ciri had so much more in store, but in the end she might as well decide to let her live. Although, maybe not. The brat had already proved last time that she was very persistent. But these were problems she could handle another day.

Now, at that moment, he was like putty in her hands. And he seemed sad, indeed. He was _actually_ grieving for that stupid witcher. It was both touching and ridiculous. But she could help him with that too. In time, he would forget. But now, now he really needed comforting. She could give him that. She would give him a little, and then he would give her something, and little by little he would realize what he had missed.

"Then come here," she said, as gently as she could, and spread her arms.   
Emhyr said nothing, he just came closer and let her take him in her arms. It didn't escape her that he only hesitantly put his arms around her. The poor man was really confused.  
"You see, that's better," muttered Assire, almost purring, while she enjoyed finally holding him, after all this time. "You won't miss this lover of yours, I guarantee it."

"That's right," Emhyr whispered into her ear, and she shivered, albeit for the wrong reason.   
"But you got it wrong. He has not been my lover. He was my _love_."

And with these words, he held the dagger in his hands, Geralt's dagger. He had wanted him to carry it, and Emhyr had accepted it just in time. Just in time to, maybe, at least honor his memory.   
Then he thrust the weapon deep into Assire’s back, and she opened her eyes wide as if she still couldn't understand, uttering a small moan, almost a sigh. She clung to his shoulders as he pulled out the dagger and struck once more. He tore loose, and she staggered back.

"I should have done it myself from the beginning," he said, his voice cold as ice.   
"But you know what, I'm still learning. For example, I kept in mind what he told me: Never lower your defense."

And with a single, tremendous, furious thrust, he pushed her back until she was standing on the edge, and there he didn't hesitate, didn't stop, didn't say a word. He pushed again, and she fell backwards over the edge, towards the river, and he watched her fall.

She rowed with her arms as if she was trying to fly, but it was actually a last desperate attempt at a spell. Even as the life force waned from her and she fell, she managed to open a portal beneath her. It was flickering, unstable and most likely very unsafe, but that didn't matter. She opened a portal.

And she missed it.

She fell, and she hit the water of the river, and she went down and disappeared.

And he watched it, standing close to the edge, looking like someone ready to throw himself down there, but he wouldn't do that. Fleetingly, he thought about the fact that the dagger was lost now, too, and he wondered if Geralt would have approved - after all, this was his last present.

 _Geralt_ , he suddenly thought, and it hit him like a punch in the gut.  
Assire had opened a portal, with her last strength, a pure act of desperation, and she almost succeeded.She had been extraordinary, even in those last seconds still able to call up her magic. But Geralt had been extraordinary, too. What if he had tried something similar? Emhyr didn't have a particularly intense understanding of witcher signs, except that they weren't nearly as powerful as the magic of mages.  
But he had seen him use a protection spell more than once, he had even cast it over them both. What if he was trying to do that to break his fall? What if it had worked? What if there was the _slightest_ chance he was still alive?

Emhyr ran off, he slipped around the bend, he followed the mountain path downhill in spite of the darkness, slipped, fell, he didn't care. He fell hard, ripped his clothes, stopped his fall carelessly with his left hand, scraped it, tore open again the cut he had from the knife - it seemed a long time ago. And he didn't care, he got up again, kept on running, now already very close to the motionless body a bit deeper down the steep path.  
  
And then he had reached him, and he fell to his knees beside him.

Geralt’s eyes were open wide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isn't that a fitting end for the bitch? In a river where she belongs ...
> 
> Song for this one: [Higher truth (Chris Cornell)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V4rTnGs8Jo)
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Sacred mind".


	30. A leader’s task so clearly / To find a path out of the dark

**— 29 —**

**A leader’s task so clearly / To find a path out of the dark**

**  
**Adan felt claws scratching across his back in flight, trying to dig their way through the leather of his armor. In a fraction of a second his hand was on the sword, he rolled onto his back and pierced the harpy, whereupon it fell down on him, screeching. Disgusted, he shook the creature off and jumped to his feet.

_Harpies_ , he thought. _Of course_.

It had been one of his first contracts from King Mathen: A nest of Harpies near the castle, unusual indeed, because the area was not quite their natural habitat. It should have seemed strange to him at the time, but it was not his style to question such things. The job promised him work for quite a while, and he didn't care whether he was destroying harpy nests or babysitting a king. As a witcher, he did not despise the coin, and as a witcher of the cat school he did not despise the roof over his head, homeless as he was.  
  
However, there was no time to think about it now. Near the completely destroyed windows stood Regis, in his vampire form - not a pretty sight, Adan thought at first, but there were worse monsters, _had he really thought that?_ \- and his claws went so fast through the harpies, that they could barely keep up with the screaming. Adan knew he was fast himself, but _this_ was a killing machine, and he could only be glad that this vampire was on his side, at least for now.  
  
Triss attacked the critters with fireballs and a dagger, but Adan saw that she was slowly getting into trouble. She was good, and she was fast, too. But magic wasn't like these newfangled automatic crossbows, she couldn't keep churning out spells in quick succession.  
  
And this dagger was undoubtedly a decent weapon, but with a very short range. The witcher shook off the next harpy that was about to pounce on him, and his evasive maneuver, in which he swung his sword far out, cost another one his head. Then he ran to Triss, stood at her side and fended off the next harpy that came too close.

"Buy me time," she shouted to him, stepped back a few paces and began to perform complicated movements with her hands, silently talking to herself, uttering the words of a spell.

He just nodded and threw himself on the screaming creatures that kept trying to wrap their wings around him. But he wouldn't let them. His style was perhaps a bit more elegant than Regis' - goodness, the vampire seemed to tear some of them apart - but just as effective. But there still seemed to be more Harpies streaming in through the windows. The ground was already littered with their remains.

And then Triss shouted, "Duck down. NOW!"

Regis and the feline reacted immediately, they threw themselves to the ground. Not a moment too soon, because now a huge wave of fire swept through the room, bounced off the stone walls and almost singed their backs. Above them, the screaming increased once more, became a terrible screeching, and the stench of burnt flesh filled the room, and then it literally rained harpies down on them.

After that, there was silence. Adan shook a body from him once more and stood up. Regis did the same, and he transformed back into his usual form and looked around in astonishment. Adan watched Triss. She stood at the other end of the hall, blew a strand of her red hair out of her face and seemed ... almost satisfied, he thought.  
  
He might have watched her for a moment too long, because she suddenly stared right into his eyes. But she didn't look away. She smiled mischievously. And not knowing what to do with it, he looked at Regis. But the vampire also seemed to smile in a strange way.

"What?" Adan asked confused. "Is there something stuck to me or what?"

He ran his fingers through his hair, but found nothing.  
Then he pointed to the chaos all around, the broken windows, the dozens of harpies' bodies, and said,   
"Pretty mess."

"I think that's an understatement," Regis remarked.   
"We must not underestimate Assire," Triss said seriously. "I'm afraid if we want to defeat her, we must join forces. Because I confess, I don't know if I can keep up with these powers."  
"I thought that was pretty impressive," Adan replied, and for him, this statement seemed not only surprisingly reasonable, but also like praise.  
"Nevertheless, and I can only speak for myself, I'm in," Regis remarked.   
"Well, I'm not going to miss the chance to save the Emperor of Nilfgaard after all," replied the feline.

"A locating spell, then. And then we'll go and get that sorceress."

And with these words, Triss set to work.

—

The bandit gang obviously got reinforcements, and they were many. The arrows of fire kept the Brugge court in suspense, but that was not all: the prisoners rounded up in the courtyard freed themselves, the guards were overwhelmed, the court was stormed by more villains, and Ciri and Yennefer had to decide whether they would stay and fight - or take the King to safety.  
  
There was not much time to think about it, it was only a matter of preventing the bandits from entering the castle. Strangely enough, it didn't seem to be their intention at all. Ciri and Yennefer retreated to the steps that formed the entrance to the castle, in front of and behind them the few soldiers who actually belonged to the permanent garrison of the court.

Ciri thought briefly that, as so often, there were ridiculously few. She had almost quarrelled about that topic with Emhyr once before - well, actually, only _she_ had quarrelled, she had become loud while he had sat there with his usual, extremely annoying calm and tried to convince her with logical arguments. She knew by now when he actually became angry - the sound in his voice was distinctly different then, a warning. He hadn't been like that back then. He was never like that when he felt he had to teach her something (which she didn't like, had never liked, but in his presence it was much harder to get upset than with Geralt).   
  
Nevertheless, she had not accepted it and had reproached him for employing almost more food tasters, dressers, sommeliers or scribes than soldiers. He had found it amusing, but Ciri wondered if he still found it funny now, after all that had happened.  
  
As she defended the stairs with quick thrusts of her sword, watching out of the corner of her eye as they tried to put out the fires, watching Yennefer cast wrathful spells on the band of bandits; as she absorbed all this, she thought: _What if that's what's happening in Cidaris right now?_

And while the outside grounds of the royal court of Brugge were in chaos, Ciri, as she fought, thought that she urgently needed to contact her fathers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from "Mirror, Mirror".


	31. You’ve been hurt but you’re not dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attention: Anatomically incorrect, relatively strong descriptions of injuries. Not too explicit, but if you can't stand the mere thought of bones, just be warned. Also please consider that this is a fantasy story, it's not intended to be anything near to reality. Yes, bones probably don't break that way. For my own pleasure, let's just pretend they do.

**— 30 —**

**You’ve been hurt but you’re not dead**

Geralt's eyes were open wide from shock and pain.

Emhyr had been wrong - not in the assumption that there had in fact been a slight chance for him to survive the fall, but that he would try to alleviate it with _Quen_. He couldn't do that, he couldn't call up the energy of his signs infinitely, he had spent everything in trying to resist Assire’s magic.  
  
But there was something he could retrieve almost infinitely: The words of Vesemir, his teacher and mentor. _Never tense up when you fall from a great height. Bend your knees slightly. Protect your head. Feet first.*_

He only had seconds while falling, and such a fall was not quite the subject of a practice lesson - so he found that although he remembered everything, he could not _implement_ everything. And nothing had prepared him for what it would be like to hit the ground.  
  
He actually landed on his feet, maybe for a second, but the force of the impact threw him on his back and he hit the ground so hard that it took his breath away. The armor absorbed some of the energy of the impact, but it also broke at several points. And he felt _everything_ : felt (and heard) bones breaking and splintering and cutting through the skin, felt something cracking inside him, felt his head hitting the ground, felt his teeth clenching, and everything inside him seemed to explode, and everything hurt at the same time, and he would have screamed if he could, but he couldn't.  
  
And then he found himself lying there, strangely enough still alive, feeling blood beneath his head and pouring out of his leg and who knows where else, and he tried to analyze his situation, to find out how badly he was hurt, but he couldn't. He knew that it was the shock, that it was maybe the only reason why he was still alive at all, why his body hadn't shut down completely. He lacked the reference: Regis could have told him that you _could_ survive a fall from that height. It wasn't easy, it wasn't pleasant (and Regis would probably have used that word), but it was possible. But Regis was not here, and that was unfortunate.

So all he could do was stare at the sky, just try to breathe - that too did hurt - and wait for anything of it to subside. Wait, so that at some point he would be able to move his hands to see if his potions had survived the fall.

Everything was black while he looked up, and that was strange, until he realized that it was night and that he was injured in the head and that he was confused, and then he suddenly could see the stars again.

And then, suddenly, there was Emhyr - he heard him more than he saw him, he didn't dare to move his head - and when he bent over him, the world turned black again. No, not black, he realized soon. _Dark brown_. His eyes were fine, he could see in the darkness, and what came into his range of vision were dark brown eyes. The most beautiful sight he could imagine. He breathed. In, out - it hurt, and he focused on those eyes.

"Geralt. Do you hear me?"

Emhyr leaned over him. Geralt's eyes were wide open, but he wasn't sure if he really saw him. If he saw anything. He _seemed_ conscious, but Emhyr had no idea how this was even possible. How he could have survived that and keep breathing, though very shallow and choppy.

Emhyr felt his knees trembling while he took the assessment that Geralt hadn't been able to do so far. He sat upright and forced himself to it, looked at the body before him as calmly as possible. And in the pale moonlight he saw: The left leg, strangely bent, shattered, a bloody chaos. Numerous smaller wounds, irrelevant, but a lot of blood under the head, in the hair, on the ground. And then the right shoulder: he could see _bones_ sticking out of the skin, out of the _armor_ , which was torn at this point from all the force.  
  
In fact, it was just _one_ bone, the collarbone broken in two clean pieces. Had Geralt been able to see that, he might have noticed that it looked a bit like the caricature of a drawing he once got as a present from a little girl. It had probably been one of the strangest encounters ever: The child had been grateful for something he had done, for someone he had helped, and had drawn him a picture. The person portrayed was supposed to be himself, but it was essentially a stickman, and the two swords on his back actually looked like two bones coming out of his shoulders.

All in all, it was a mess, and Emhyr couldn't even tell if there were any internal injuries. He didn't know how Geralt had survived that. And Emhyr actually flinched when Geralt suddenly spoke.  
  
"Should have... kissed me... when you had the chance," he rasped out.   
Emhyr watched him closely. He was conscious, he spoke. He was talking nonsense. Even now, Geralt tried to calm _him_ down, to convince him that somehow everything was in order. But nothing was in order.

"Geralt, don't you dare die on me now," he said, with as much authority as he had - which was not much at the moment.  
"Won't ... die. Not ... this time. Hey… I’ve died twice.“**  
He even managed a slight smile, but the bloody spit bubbles he exhaled did not really convince Emhyr.   
"Just be quiet," Emhyr admonished him softly.   
  
He looked at him again, tried to find out if there was anything he could do. Geralt's eyes were fixed on him, and there was so much pain in them, and Emhyr felt his hands tremble as he reached out and stroked Geralt's cheek, somehow helplessly.

"I have no idea what to do," he admitted. "Geralt, what am I to do?"  
"Don't... panic," Geralt gasped.  
"I'm not panicked," Emhyr claimed.  
"Bag. Chest“, Geralt pushed out. "Red... potion."

Emhyr reacted immediately, glad to do anything, and he groped after the little bag that was hanging now only loose across Geralt's chest from a strap, found it, ordered his fingers to stay still, and finally managed to pull out a small vial that had miraculously remained intact.  
  
He held the vial upwards, into the pale moonlight, and he believed that the liquid was red. He uncorked it - now his fingers weren't shaking anymore - and held the vial to Geralt's lips. He didn't ask what it was for, what it did. He didn't want Geralt to talk too much, it didn't do him any good.

However, he did not believe that any witcher potion would work wonders with the severity of these injuries. He watched Geralt's facial vains darkening slightly, that was all that happened. Did it have any effect at all?

For Geralt, it had an effect - his eyesight became clearer, his head a little lighter, it was easier for him to push the pain into the background and to think.   
"Tell me what you see", he said.  
Emhyr exhaled out noisily.  
"You don't want that."  
"Yes, I do," Geralt said as firmly as possible.

He had survived until now, so there was hope. But he had to know how badly he was hurt. He had to trust Emhyr to keep up his facade of cool superiority. That he would act as he always did, precisely, without hesitation, and brutally if necessary. Now, in this moment, he needed the Emperor. It was perhaps the only thing that could keep him alive.

Something in his voice forced Emhyr to focus.   
"The leg is broken. Multiple, I guess. Also torn, one long crack from the thigh to... a hand's breadth below the knee," he replied without hesitation.   
"Is it still bleeding?"  
"Yes."  
"Tie it. Straight... above the wound."

So instructed, Emhyr's hands had no choice but to obey, and they did. He wore a belt, so he took it off and wrapped it gently around Geralt’s thigh, trying not to notice how bad it looked.  
"Tighter," Geralt murmured.   
Emhyr hesitated.  
Geralt gaze searched his.   
"You have to... pull tighter," he repeated.

Emhyr refrained from saying what he thought: That he didn't want to hurt him. It was useless, it probably didn't make any difference at all. So he pulled tighter and stopped the bleeding.

"Well done", Geralt wheezed. "Now move on. What else?"  
"Blood, under your head. I guess there's nothing we can do about that right now. And then the shoulder."  
He hesitated.   
"I see... Bones."

Geralt tried to turn his head.  
"A wound through which you see bones?" he asked.  
"No. A bone that pierced through the skin. And the armor, I’m afraid. The bone is broken, almost in the middle, I think. Two pieces that..."  
He felt bile in his mouth.

"Focus", Geralt ordered. "Two pieces for sure?"  
"Yes, I'm sure.  
"The collarbone", Geralt replied. He sighed briefly. He felt blood in his mouth.   
"You have... You have to put the two pieces together... and push them back.“

Emhyr stared at him, this time _he_ opened his eyes wide.  
"Are you crazy?"  
"Emhyr. I still need that arm."

Geralt tried to raise his left hand to reach for him, to make him understand that this was important, but his body seemed to disobey him.  
Emhyr saw it, he grabbed his hand, held it tight - held himself onto it.

"When I heal and the bone doesn't grow back together properly..."  
"You need your leg as well, and I don't think I can hold anything together there," Emhyr replied.  
"Problem … after problem," Geralt rasped out.

And only now he could think of Assire again. He would have asked where she was, what had happened, but she wasn't here, and in fact there were more important things. It would have to wait. And besides, if she wanted her revenge, now would have been the best time to do so. But she wasn't here, so he wouldn't be thinking about her.

"You'll have to splint that leg," he said. "But first the shoulder. Put... the bone together. Push it in. Cover the wound."  
His breath was faster now, which wasn't good, but there was so much to explain, and he had to be sure Emhyr didn't hesitate.

And he didn't. He didn't want to do any of that, but he had to, so he would. He could, he told himself. Somehow, he could.   
"There's some bandages in the same bag," Geralt said. "Now get on with it."   
Emhyr said nothing. His hands weren't shaking, not even when he took out the few bandages. He put them aside, looked at Geralt again, nodded.

Then Emhyr averted his gaze, he really didn't want to look him in the face when he went through with it.   
Emhyr carefully put one hand on the injured shoulder. He felt Geralt tense up even though he hadn't even touched the bone (and damn, he didn’t want to). He sensed that Geralt's gaze was focused on him, but Emhyr didn't look at him, he concentrated completely on this task now.  
He did not have to tell him that it would hurt. It would hurt him himself that he had to do that, but for Geralt, it would be horrible.

Geralt clenched when he felt Emhyr touching his shoulder. He forced himself to loosen his muscles, to breathe, to look at him and just let it happen. Emhyr bent over him so he could see better what he had to do, and his smell was familiar and soothing, even though there was a hint of fear in it, and he almost relaxed; but then Emhyr put his fingers on his _bone_. The feeling was so disgusting that he could no longer control his breathing. But if he would stop now, if he didn't do it now, Geralt himself wouldn't have the courage anymore, and that would be really bad for his sword arm.

But Emhyr did not stop. The feeling of holding a bone in his hands was _actually_ disgusting. But he knew he could not stop now. He was very close now, he could see how the bone belonged together. He squeezed it together, the sound was almost worse than the feeling, and he heard Geralt gasping underneath him. Then he pushed, pressing the bone back into the flesh. And Geralt screamed, and the scream echoed from the rock face. But he didn't stop, he didn't look at him, he held on with one hand and grabbed the bandage with the other, wrapped it quickly (and amazingly skillfully) around the shoulder and made sure that the bone stayed in place. And then he almost collapsed on Geralt, whispering incoherent things into his ear, and his hands were shaking now.  
  
And Geralt, who - damn it - was still conscious, but had his eyes half closed, finally managed to raise one hand, and his hand also trembled slightly when he grabbed Emhyr's neck and held him down and whispered into his ear: "That was the easy part."  
Emhyr actually produced a kind of laugh, although it sounded almost more like a sob, and he pushed himself slightly away from Geralt, looked him in the eyes and said, "Never, never make me do that again.“  
"I have no increased interest in it", Geralt replied, surprisingly calm. "But we're not finished yet."

He took a deep breath - bad idea, that hurt - and said: "You have to put a splint on that leg."  
"Fine, but with what?"  
"Branches?" Geralt suggested.  
"The next trees are quite a bit below us. Geralt, I won't leave you here, looking for branches."  
"Take a sword," mumbled Geralt. "I'm lying on it."  
"You are lying on your _swords_? Darn it, Geralt. Why didn't you say so before?"  
"On _one_. The other has to be somewhere around. Stop swearing. You have to loosen the other strap."

So Emhyr loosened the second strap that ran across Geralt's chest, trying to figure out exactly where it ended. Then he had to turn Geralt slightly to the side - that was really difficult, and obviously that hurt tremendously, and measured by the soft, painful sounds Geralt made, he hated it, and Emhyr hated it too. But somehow he managed to pull the sheats out from under his back. One sword, indeed. He squinted his eyes together, peered into the darkness and finally found the other one, not far away.He looked at them sceptically, but actually the idea was not a bad one, as ridiculous as it might seem.  
  
"Stabilize. On both sides," gasped Geralt. "Secure with the strap."  
So he did it like like he was told, almost mechanically, even though he wanted to touch the leg even less than the shoulder. At least the bones didn't stick out of that bloody mass, but it occurred to him that they might have been too shattered for that, and that caused a cold knot in his stomach. When he had finally finished, had placed the two swords on the sides of the leg and fastened them with the belt and a rest of the bandages, they were both covered in sweat.  
  
Geralt's eyes had become glassy.   
"What now?" asked Emhyr, if only to keep him awake.   
As it turned out, that was Geralt's plan as well.

"You have to keep talking," he demanded softly.   
Emhyr frowned, fearing Geralt was close to the edge, and he said, "You should rest."  
"No, that's just it," Geralt said stubbornly. "Head wound. You have to make sure that I stay conscious."  
"What? You're telling me that now? Geralt, I pushed your _bones_ together, you could have fainted at any time. And now you tell me that was dangerous?"  
"You wouldn't have done it if I had told you", Geralt said.   
And that was probably true.

"Listen. I have no idea how to get out of here. You can't get help. I can't get up. We have to trust Triss to find us. Or you can try and find a raven."  
"A what? There are no birds up here, Geralt.“  
Emhyr was really worried now that Geralt was starting to let go. And it was true, they had to trust that someone would find them. However that was going to work.

"All right," he finally said. "What do you want me to tell you?"  
"Dunno", Geralt mumbled.   
"Keep your eyes open. I will tell you..."

Emhyr thought for a moment. Then he reached for Geralt's hand again, and Geralt held on to it, and somehow it made it easier for both of them.  
"I will tell you about the time I realized I fell for you."   
Geralt cracked his eyes open.   
"You're getting soft."  
"You don't have to tell anyone."  
"Go on, I'm curious."

Emhyr looked up at the sky, watching the stars, remembering.   
"Do you recall the first time you came to visit Cirilla? After you brought her to me. After she agreed to..."  
"I remember," Geralt stated, and it was clear that he didn't _like_ to remember. Emhyr knew why.

"You didn't last eight weeks, then you stood there and said you had to see her. You were drunk and you looked like a wounded deer."  
"36 days," Geralt replied quietly. "And I didn't look like a _deer_."  
"Anyway, you stood in front of me and demanded to see Cirilla. Because, and I quote, you had a _‚ight‘_ to.“  
"I didn't say that," Geralt replied, and it almost looked as if he suppressed a laugh.   
"Oh yes, you did. But what I saw … you were broken, for sure, feeling like I had taken something away from you. And I realized you probably felt guilty. I didn't realize until then what you had done for her and what you had given up. And I saw a man with very deep feelings. Filled with great loyalty, love, faithfulness..."  
"You saw all this while I was _drunk_?"  
"I see a lot, Geralt.“

They remained silent for a while, lost in memorys, lost in feelings, and Emhyr looked at him very closely to see if he would fall asleep. But Geralt's eyes were still wide open, and there was more than just pain in them now. And yet, Emhyr worried about how long he would last. How long they had to wait here, for a most uncertain rescue.

Geralt began to tremble, and he grabbed his hand tighter.  
"What's wrong?" Emhyr asked alarmed.  
"The effects of the potion are wearing off."  
Emhyr had no idea what this meant, but he carefully removed his hand from Geralt's hand and took off his long coat. He placed it over Geralt to keep him warm. Then he brushed a strand of hair from his face, bent over him and kissed him gently.

"What was that for?" Geralt asked in surprise.   
"I don't want to miss the moment again. If it's the last time."  
"Very reassuring.“  
"But … we stepped out of that portal together, in one piece“, said Emhyr, obviously trying to show confidence. "We will …"  
"Well, I won’t _step_ anywhere“, Geralt interrupted him. "And not in one piece."  
"That's not funny, Geralt."  
"I'm not laughing."

And then they were silent, just looking at each other for a while. And they waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * There is actually a silly document on the internet (with hilarious pictures) that gives you instructions what to do if you fall from a great hight. Please don't try this at home. 
> 
> ** Shamelessly quoting from my favorite musical episode of a 90s tv-show ... Can anybody guess?
> 
> Feel free to pity them now! 
> 
> There is my lifeblood in this chapter, so I hope you like it :) 
> 
> I couldn't decide on one song, I listened to three all the time while writing:
> 
> [Metallica, Until it sleeps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnWz59xz8Pc)  
> [Disturbed, A reason to fight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4382UVl0oc)  
> [This is Gallifrey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZgG_1kev1A)
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Hall of the King".


	32. Are you out there?

**— 31 —**

**Are you out there?  
  
**

Regis and Adan watched intently as Triss used the small piece of cloth to - yes, to do what exactly? They had no idea, but it certainly seemed complicated to them. In fact, it wasn't half as complex as they thought. Locator spells were easy to cast and didn't cost much power, which was important - Triss had invested quite a lot in the fire that destroyed the harpies. And she would still have to open a portal.   
  
After a brief period of everyone holding their breath, Triss suddenly said, "I got it."  
"I don't see anything," Adan replied unimpressed.   
"The point of the matter is probably less that you see something," Regis said patiently.  
And he was, of course, right.  
Adan kept a straight face. It was still difficult for him to get used to the presence of a higher vampire. The way Triss dealt with him - as if he were a completely natural creature, it was hard to understand. And the thought that Geralt had actually called him a friend... Weird.

"There's nothing to see“, Triss confirmed. She held the piece of cloth in her hands and said, "This is now linked to her last whereabouts. If she just made a stopover and jumped somewhere else afterwards, we probably have a problem. But if she's at that mountain fort now, we might as well go there.“

"What if she was protecting herself against it?" Regis interjected thoughtfully. "What if she foresaw this move?"   
He tapped the tip of his nose with his long fingers. Adan thought it was odd, but he didn't know that was a very typical gesture for the vampire. He wouldn’t have imagined him using gestures anyway. It actually made him look quite human. Weird.

"I don't need an 'what if' right now," Triss declared forcefully. "We have nothing else. Geralt is stuck there, we don't even know if he found the Emperor, and even if he did - they're probably both facing that lunatic now."  
"I don't need to be convinced," Regis said gently.   
Adan looked up in surprise.  
"What? I've already told you I'm in."  
"Remarkable," Regis replied.   
"Why?"  
"I didn't have the feeling you two got along particularly well. You, and Geralt."  
Adan looked at him defiantly.  
"In any case, I don't currently have any plans to kill him either."

"We don't have time for this now", Triss interrupted them. "Could you make some space?"  
She pointed to the ground, covered with harpy bodies.   
Adan took another long look at the vampire, then he began to kick some of the nearest corpses out of the way with his feet, until finally there was a gap.  
"That's enough," Triss said and raised her hands. "Get ready."

She opened the portal.

—

The small squad of soldiers had travelled as fast as they could. Perhaps the path from Cidaris to Vole had never been travelled this fast before. It had taken some persuading, when they appeared in the middle of the night and without a real officer in Vole, demanding military support for the Cidaris royal court.

However: they were clearly soldiers from the capital, and as such to claim that there was obviously some kind of coup in progress there, and moreover that Nilfgaardian soldiers were lying unconscious in front of the throne room - it was nothing to make up. Not if you knew the penalty for treason was death. So they got their reinforcements, and although it was the middle of the night, the captain ordered his armed forces to investigate the matter immediately.   
The soldier, who had claimed it was a ride of several hours from Cidaris to Vole, was proven wrong. It took his time, but not many hours, and they reached the castle before dawn.

It was still in darkness, still without any kind of illumination, which only the soldiers from Vole did not find unusual around this hour. They entered the castle, the corridors and halls were all empty - except for a handful of servants who had indeed not fled, but were actually preparing for the King's funeral. Surprise switched with relief, and they reported that no one had entered the throne room for hours, no guards had shown up.

Worried that the courtiers not only confirmed the soldiers' story, but also filled it with more details, the captain ordered to proceed to the throne room.

No sooner had they arrived in the appropriate corridor than they noticed them: some Cidarians and a bunch of soldiers in the Nilfgaardian armor,who had apparently just come to and seemed very confused. The Nilfgaardian commander was the first to react and demanded a report from the captain, who in turn would have liked to know what was going on.

Someone opened the door to the throne room, and everyone gasped.   
The room was completely devastated, all windows destroyed, and the floor was littered with dead harpies.

"Clean up", the commander ordered his men, if only to keep them busy. The soldiers of Cidaris joined in, and even the commander and the captain helped, forming piles of harpies and taking the bodies outside.

All the time the commander could only think of one thing: That they had to find someone who could explain to them what had happened here.

—

Triss had never - well, almost never - created a portal that was not aimed at a specific, fixed point. She knew that Yennefer had done it, probably several times: created unsafe, possibly unstable portals, out of sheer desperation, in dire need.

It was not what Triss or her companions had expected. After entering the portal, they all seemed to float in the air for a brief moment. And then, without warning, they hit water, went down. The river was deep at this point, and it was completely dark, and panic ensued for a moment. At least with Triss, who wasn't a very good swimmer. Regis had surfaced again in a split second and waded to the very narrow bank at this point, snorting. Adan, on the other hand, who didn't see much in this murky broth despite all the mutations, somehow noticed Triss' difficulties. So he grabbed her around his waist and pulled her out of the water with him.

On the narrow, pebble-strewn bank, Triss shook the witcher off and brushed strands of wet hair from her face. However, she wasn't angry, as he had expected (for whatever reason he had expected it - but she seemed to be a person who generally got angry quickly).

"Thank you," she said. "I... Let's just say the water's not exactly my element.“   
Adan didn't say anything, just watched with interest as she fiddled a little unhappily with her wet clothes.   
"What happened?" Regis asked, when the silence became somewhat awkward.   
"I would like to know that too," the sorceress replied. "The spell was correct. If she had had the chance to distract it somehow, she certainly wouldn't have just thrown us in the river."

"It would have bought her time in any case," said Adan.   
"Isn't there a more obvious assumption?" Regis suggested, while he looked up thoughtfully.

"You don't think she could have been thrown into the river?"  
Triss looked up. The narrow bank was lined by a high and steep scarp. Somewhere up there was a path that led to the fort. Triss' glance caught the now calm waters of the river, where the moon was reflected.

If Assire had fallen - or been pushed - down here, she had probably not survived. But one couldn't be sure, after all it wouldn't have been the first time. Nevertheless: The fact that the portal had thrown them directly into a river could certainly mean that Assire had been in that river at one point. Or that she was actually at the _bottom_ of the river.

"I don't really care if someone threw her down there, I'd say it would be a happy coincidence," Adan now let himself be heard. "We can deal with the sorceress if it becomes necessary. Now we'd better find out where Geralt and the Emperor are.“

"Maybe there was a fight up there," Regis said, suddenly worried for some reason. Adan didn't know exactly how pronounced the vampire's senses were, but the fact that he lost some of his calm nature was indeed disturbing. He looked up, but apart from the rock face nothing was to be seen.

"I thought the bridge was destroyed," he said. "The fort must be that way."   
He pointed south, to the other side of the cliff.   
„So, how could they have crossed?"  
"With the portal," Triss replied quickly. "You're right - there might have been a battle."

She looked at Regis seriously.  
"You’re right, I'll have a look. You should try to find a way up," he said.   
"Please take a step back. Oh, and just as a warning - this may not be a very pleasant sight“, he added in Adan’s direction.  
And when he transformed this time, it was a sight almost burned into Adan's retina. But it all happened in a flash, and the spreading of dark wings was almost synonymous with suddenly seeing him far above.

"You look like you've never seen a vampire before," Triss said to Adan, although his facial expression was hard to read at the time. "To be honest, I find that hard to imagine in a witcher."  
"Vampires? Yes. Several. But not one of those," the elf returned.   
"Well, Regis is quite a special specimen," Triss replied, although she knew exactly what what he meant.

Together they circled the narrow stretch of beach until they finally found the beginning of the mountain path.  
Adan looked up skeptically.  
The path led serpentine in narrow curves higher and higher. The higher up it went, the sparser the vegetation became - where there were single trees in the beginning, there was only bare rock later on.   
„Well, here we go," he said offhand.

He set out on the ascent. Following an impulse, Triss took a quick look at her wrist. The trisquelion that Assire had put on her like a brand faded. Like a curse. Triss remembered well what she had recently explained to Emhyr: that there were several ways a curse could be broken. One of them was the death of the one who caused it. With renewed courage, Triss set out on the climb and followed Adan. 

—

For Regis, the ascent was of course not a problem, and darkness was for certain no obstacle for the vampire. He spotted his target a good distance below the fort, and in a split second he grasped two things: The Emperor lived, which was good. And he sensed that Geralt was alive, which was also good. But he saw him lying on the ground, and he smelled blood even up this high, and when he opened his senses just a bit, a real flood of pain and shock and fear hit him - and all of this was not good at all.

He landed silently right behind the emperor, who did not notice him. Regis felt ridiculous when he cleared his throat slightly, but he didn't want to frighten him.  
Emhyr turned abruptly, staring at the vampire, who had appeared out of nowhere - and for Emhyr, that was true. He needed a moment to even realize who stood before him. One blink of an eye later, he jumped to his feet.

"What's wrong?" mumbled Geralt.  
Regis didn't bother to explain. Without paying attention to Emhyr, he lowered himself carefully to one knee, laid one hand lightly on Geralt's chest and said, while he was still lifting the cloak that was spread over Geralt and getting a quick overview: "What's wrong, indeed, my friend. As the saying goes, 'He who aims high falls low.'"  
"Proverbs, Regis, seriously?“

Regis didn't answer, he just smiled one of his reassuring little smiles - which Geralt found disturbing indeed - got up again and joined Emhyr. The latter still couldn't figure out where the vampire had come from so suddenly, but he had a hunch that Geralt's remark about the raven had not been uttered in half-delirium after all.

The vampire briefly took the Emperor aside and whispered: "When did this happen? And did he ingest anything?"  
Emhyr thought about it for a moment. He had completely lost track of time, but he had certainly noticed that dawn was approaching.  
"A couple of hours, perhaps," he said hesitantly. "He wanted me to give him a reddish potion."  
Regis nodded.   
  
"That means he doesn't have anything stronger with him, or he didn't want to risk it."  
"He said he had to stay awake," replied Emhyr.   
"This is at least helpful until help arrives," Regis confirmed. "But he's in shock. And in too much pain to last much longer."  
"You know I can hear you," Geralt said, still not willing to give in or to give up.

Regis said nothing, instead he suddenly disappeared.  
Emhyr watched him leave, then looked to Geralt in confusion.  
"He has come back. It's okay", Geralt said softly.

Emhyr, who still remembered well that the vampire had been under the influence of a foreign power the last time and had only made things worse, remained sceptical. But of course he also hadn't forgotten that the vampire was a friend of Geralt and had helped him before.

"I don't understand why we always end up here," Emhyr said with a sigh, and he noticed that he was tired and maybe a bit in shock as well.   
"Hm?"  
Emhyr knelt down again, feeling that his legs were slowly giving way.   
  
"You're getting into trouble, I'm getting worried. Does it have to be this way, Geralt?"  
"You let yourself be kidnapped", Geralt reminded him.  
"Because you were a lousy bodyguard.“  
"Was not my idea. Besides, I guess we're even on the worrying part. And I saved you."  
"You _found_ me, you did not save me," Emhyr corrected him.   
"Then you can save me now and we are even again", Geralt retorted.  
"First of all your logic is flawed. And second, I don't think I have any part in this rescue."  
"I think you're quite wrong“, said Geralt with a weak smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from "Twilight of the gods".


	33. Once we were a circle fighting hand in hand

**— 32 —**

**Once we were a circle fighting hand in hand**

Regis landed completely unexpectedly in front of Triss and Adan, who had covered about a third of the distance.   
"Excuse me," he said. "But it's urgent."   
And without any further explanation, he reached for Triss, took her in his arms - Adan's eyes were almost popping out of his head - and took off into the air with her.

"Seriously?" shouted the elf, stomping furiously up the hill.  
  
Triss had no time to react, she even had the feeling that she forgot to breathe for a moment when Regis had risen with her. The experience was undoubtedly unique, but it lasted only for a short time. They had already reached higher ground, and Triss also quickly grasped the situation in front of her. She broke away from Regis and bent over Geralt.

Her eyes widened when she noticed that he was conscious and looking at her.   
"It's getting crowded here," he murmured.   
"What the..."   
Triss looked up, up the rock face, estimated the height, looked at Geralt, shook her head.   
"You stupid idiot," she cursed.  
"You think I fell down there voluntarily?"   
Triss shook her head again, she just couldn't believe that he had survived that - and that he was still uttering stupid sayings.

"We have to get out of here. Urgently," she then said emphatically, turning to Regis. "There's nothing I can do for him here."  
Regis nodded.   
"I worry about internal injuries," he admitted. "There's nothing I can do about that here now."

At that moment Adan came, slightly out of breath, dashing along the mountain path.   
When he saw Geralt, he stopped abruptly.   
"Shit," he said, lowered himself down to one knee next to Triss and examined him quickly, efficiently and with the gaze of the expert.   
"What did you take?" he asked.   
"Swallow."  
"This is bullshit, you need something much stronger. I got... "

Regis put a hand on Adan’s shoulder and shook his head.   
"Not now. The injuries are too severe. We can't risk it."  
"Oh, and are you a doctor now too?" growled the elf.   
"By chance yes," Regis replied unmoved.   
"Shit," Adan repeated.

Emhyr, who had calmed down in the meantime, now that rescue seemed so close, rose and asked, "What do we do now?"  
Triss stood up and looked at him seriously.  
"We have to get him out of here. It's urgent."  
"Where is this sorceress?" Adan suddenly asked.   
Triss and Regis looked at him in surprise - they had actually forgotten for a moment why they were here.

"We don't have to worry about her anymore," Emhyr replied, cool and composed.   
No one dared to ask what that meant. In the end, it did not matter.   
"How do we get out of here?" he followed up.

"This makeshift splint is quite solid, but I don't think we'll get him down the hill like this," Adan replied thoughtfully. "What about magic?"  
"We're all going to go through a portal," Triss said determinedly. "You're right, we should be careful. But I can't open a portal and cast a levitation spell in addition, it's just not enough for that anymore. Regis?"  
The vampire grimaced.   
"I could carry him, but I honestly feel it's too precarious. The leg..."  
"... is mush," Adan said insensitively. "We need a stretcher or something.“

"And quickly," said Regis, who bent over Geralt again and looked him in the eye. Geralt's breathing became shallower and shallower and his gaze wasn't very focused anymore. It seemed as if his stubbornness had kept him going until now, but just before the finish line he wanted to give up. Regis didn't want to let that happen.  
He put the thumb and index finger of his right hand on Geralt’s forehead and whispered, "Look at me."  
Geralt looked at him, he couldn't escape the voice even if he wanted to. And because he knew what Regis was up to, he didn't even want to.

"You don't have to be aware of this," Regis said gently. He pressed his fingers briefly on Geralt's forehead, and as if on command he closed his eyes.   
"What did you do?" Emhyr asked worriedly.   
"He is in good hands now," Triss reassured him. "We should hurry anyway. I can't do anything until we get back, I can't set any bones out here, let alone reassemble organs. Besides, my strength is only enough for the portal."

Regis had already kneeled down next to Geralt, put Emhyr's coat aside and started to examine the injuries more thoroughly.   
"I may be able to do one or the other thing here," he said. "Stabilize him."  
Adan knelt beside him, fumbling with his pockets and said "I have bandages."  
"Good", Regis replied. "But we still need a stretcher."  
Adan handed him his utensils and stood up again.   
"There are trees further down," he said. "We can make a makeshift stretcher, I think. A few branches, then maybe this coat - I'm sorry," he said in Emhyr's direction, "but I'm afraid it's ruined anyway."

"Well, I guess the Emperor needs new clothes then," Emhyr replied without a facial expression.   
Everyone, even Regis, stared at him in disbelief.   
Adan jumped up and said, "I'll get some branches."  
"I'll go with you," Emhyr said surprisingly. And to avoid their glances, he added, "I've got to do something."

"It seems to me you've done quite a bit here," Regis said appreciatively after looking under the bandages on Geralt's shoulder.   
Emhyr didn't answer, and Adan didn't know what to say - it was obvious that he didn't quite feel comfortable going to collect _branches_ with the Emperor of Nilfgaard. But he couldn't refuse it either, that much was clear.  
Although it was undoubtedly akward to put a knife in the Emperor's hand, it turned out that he had surprisingly skilful hands. And Adan knew that one day he would have an interesting story to tell: How he once knelt on the ground with the Emperor of Nilfgaard and carved branches.

While Triss helped Regis, who examined he head wound and then carefully tried to palpate the spine - which was not easy due to the armor, but he did not yet dare to remove it -Emhyr and the feline managed to build a decent carrying aid with the help of two large branches, some smaller, sturdy twigs, ropes, remains of bandages and the coat. It was a very simple concept, but it actually worked.

"We are ready," Adan finally said. He took the stretcher to Regis.   
"Good, now it's going to be a bit tricky," the vampire replied, and Adan felt that this was an understatement.   
"We can't lift him up, so we'll turn him on his side, slide the stretcher under his back and then very gently push the other side along. But we can't put too much weight on the leg. All right?"   
Adan just nodded, and he followed the vampire in all his movements, and somehow they managed to get Geralt onto the makeshift stretcher.

Emhyr was just glad that Geralt didn't feel any of this anymore, because he himself got sick at the sight and he noticed that he started shaking, he couldn't control it. Regis happened to look up, noticed that Emhyr had turned pale, and said in his most reassuring, cheerful doctor's voice, "Oh, I think we have another patient here." He gave Triss a quick look, and she immediately got up, grabbed Emhyr's arm and forced him to look at her.  
"Not a good time," she said sharply. It was clear that his own state of shock was now completely set in, but there was no time for that.   
"We won't need you as a worried partner once we get back," she continued, much more gently. "We need you as the Emperor, because Cidaris is in chaos. Without a King, the country is without a leader and vulnerable.“  
These words actually reached him, although he did not quite know what she meant.  
"Why without a King?" he asked, confused.  
"Oh." Triss opened her eyes wide. "You don’t know it yet … King Mathen is dead.“  
"Did Assire kill him?“ he asked grimly.   
Triss nodded and watched him closely. But now he was back on track, fully aware and able to push his feelings aside.

"We’re ready to go“, Adan announced, and as they turned, they saw him and Regis, carefully lifting the stretcher with the unconcious witcher up.

And there was another portal casted, and one by one, they stepped through it.

—

Through the destroyed windows in the throne room of Cidaris it was visible that slowly dawn was breaking. The soldiers had cleared the room of all the harpy corpses, and the commander had questioned some of the servants and found out that the King was dead, the Emperor was apparently still missing, as well as the sorceress and two witchers - it was all a huge chaos.

After all the harpies had been removed, the commander stood with some of his soldiers for a moment, somewhat indecisively. He had to think about where he could find a clue to track down the Emperor, and that now he had to do so not only with soldiers from the capital, but also with a far too eager captain from some insignificant city of the northerners, was not of his liking. Nevertheless, he had a duty for the Emperor and he was willing to fulfill it.

But he was not prepared for the sudden noise behind him, and he quickly turned around to see another one of those damned magic portals, and he shouted „Swords!“

And so it happened, that Emhyr var Emreis, the Emperor of Nilfgaard, stepped through a portal just to find himself in front of more than a dozen swords. He frowned when he recognised his own men. And albeit he was somewhat bruised and his clothes were in disorder, everyone immediately recognised him.  
"Lower your weapons!" he shouted in a commanding voice, even before the commander was able to react, and the soldiers obeyed immediately.   
Emhyr turned to the commander.  
„Is there an infirmary in this castle?“ he demanded to know.  
„I believe so, Your Imperial Highness“, the commander answered. „We will have to ask the Cidarians …“  
„Then do so. And lead us ahead, guarded. Quickly.“

The commander was about to ask whom he meant, when suddenly another man stepped out of the teleport - a strangely looking figure of an elderly man in black clothes, holding the end of something that seemed to be a makeshift stretcher. On it lay the white-haired witcher, and soon after him followed the other witcher, holding the other end of the stretcher. After this the red-haired sorceress appeared. It was, all in all, very strange. 

But it was to become even stranger: Shortly before the commander wanted to order his men to clear the way, another hissing, almost metallic noise sounded, and a second portal appeared in the throne room.   
The soldiers were immediately back in position, and once again swords greeted those coming out of the portal. Emhyr turned around - and saw Ciri and Yennefer, who stepped out of the portal at the same time, ready to fight.

"Weapons down," yelled the commander this time, who had recognized the future Empress immediately.  
"Papa!" Ciri shouted, relieved to see Emhyr - although he seemed a bit dishevelled, everything seemed to be fine with him.   
"Damned," Yennefer said, and then Ciri saw Geralt, too, rushed to his side, and as expected she shouted at Emhyr, who didn't go for it this time.

One look from the Emperor was enough, the commander gave some quick instructions, found out where to go, and the soldiers finally lead the strange little procession ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the very, very bad pun... but I just couldn't let it go :)
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Guardian of the blind"


	34. Carry on the flame / It’s not over now

**— 33 —**

**Carry on the flame / It’s not over now**

\- More than a week later -

Geralt had been allowed to get up for the first time today, by which Regis had meant that he should try to put some weight on his leg and maybe walk a few steps. That he would flee the room and hobble through the palace was not actually intended.

Emhyr finally found him in the palace gardens, sitting on one of the benches,looking at the flowers; his leg stretched out from him, his right arm still in a sling. The sight of the Emperor made all those still present in the gardens retreat quickly (though, to be honest, the sight of the witcher had been enough for most of them: wild hair, wild facial expression, clothing unsuitable for the palace and barefoot).

Emhyr sat down beside him and said, "Spring is coming after all."  
Geralt just hummed.   
"Regis was worried," Emhyr remarked.   
"Nonsense. He knows exactly that I won't get far", Geralt murmured, unable to prevent his voice sounding slightly annoyed.   
Emhyr reached for Geralt's left hand and said: "That takes its time. You of all people should know that by now."  
"That doesn't mean I like it," Geralt replied with a sigh.   
"I can arrange to have you taken to Corvo Bianco, if that's what you want."  
"So that Ciri follows me and not only upsets poor B.B., but also ruins all your plans?" Geralt replied, now almost smiling. "No. Besides, I don't want to leave."

After the events in Brugge, Ciri and Yennefer had tried to contact Triss, but when the sorceress didn't answer, Ciri claimed to have a premonition - and Yennefer couldn't rule it out completely - and insisted on checking on Cidaris immediately. None of them had expected to find such a chaos, though: A dead king, the news of the resurrection and the new death of Assire var Anahid, Emhyr kidnapped in the meantime, Geralt badly injured, Regis back and a cat school witcher as a cherry on top...

It was all a bit much, and their sudden appearance only caused more chaos: Ciri wanted to stay with Geralt by all means, Yennefer argued with Triss about the treatment, and Emhyr finally had them both thrown out. Ciri had refused to talk to Emhyr for almost two days and Geralt, as soon as he had regained his senses, had finally forbidden them both to see him - and told them not to come back until they both calmed down. That had worked. Geralt was the link in the still quite fragile relationship between Emhyr and his daughter, although he sometimes felt more like a buffer.

Yennefer had disappeared again pretty quickly. She had excused herself by saying that she still had some things to explain in Brugge, but actually, Geralt didn't doubt that she had neither an increased interest in dealing with Triss nor with Emhyr. Or even with himself, for that matter.  
  
And as for Emhyr: He was quite concerned with the political situation that had arisen with the death of King Mathen. He had no successors, and Emhyr had felt responsible to intervene personally - probably not without ulterior motives, Geralt suspected. After all, he had been after this kingdom from the very beginning. It seemed as if he would get it now in a completely different way than intended, but at least a lot of diplomacy and negotiations were necessary even now. Added to this was the trouble in Brugge, which in the end had also been caused by Assire and for which explanations were also demanded from the Emperor. In fact, Geralt would have had more peace on his vineyard, but that was not what he wanted.

Even Adan seemed to have no interest in leaving Wyzima so soon. He had babbled something about Geralt not being able to work as a bodyguard for some time now and he could certainly make himself useful as a witcher for the Emperor in the meantime.

Geralt basically thought the elf was an annoying blowfly who used the favour of the hour - which he couldn't blame him for, though. Moreover, he believed that the feline had somehow taken a liking to Triss - the thought was repugnant to him, but in the end it was not his business. And if he was honest, a witcher could be useful in Wyzima, and he himself would indeed be out of action for a while. Magic might be able to put shattered bones back together again and his own healing abilities might speed things up a bit, but neither guaranteed a miraculous healing.

They sat in silence for a while, holding hands, pretending to look at the flowers. They really looked like an old married couple - albeit a slightly damaged one. Emhyr held Geralt's hand with his own bandaged hand - the wound he had from the knife and the fall on the mountain had become infected, and he had stubbornly refused to let it be treated with magic.

Suddenly Emhyr stood up and pulled the surprised Geralt gently with him. He grabbed him tightly by the waist to prevent him from stumbling.   
"What are you doing?"  
"I have been cheated out of my dance," said Emhyr. He looked at Geralt calmly and serenely, without smiling, but with a familiar slight sparkle in his eyes.   
  
"As for that, I was cheated out of an extensive banquet," Geralt returned.   
"Hm", Emhyr muttered and pulled him even closer.   
"You’re serious," Geralt said, stunned.   
"Of course."  
"I can hardly stand,“ Geralt murmured, but Emhyr just held him tight, and it was actually very nice.   
"You hobbled down two floors of stairs", Emhyr whispered into his hair.   
"More or less on one leg," Geralt returned and let his left hand slide deeper on Emhyr's back.   
"Don't get cheeky."  
"Oh, not now, all of a sudden?"

And then his leg gave way, and before he stumbled, Emhyr held him down and gently pushed him back onto the bench.   
"Are you all right?" he asked, slightly worried. "Shall we go back inside?"  
Geralt shook his head.  
"Not yet."  
Emhyr looked at him attentively. Then he smiled slightly.  
"We'll practice that again sometime," he said.  
"If you call _that_ dancing, that's fine with me."  
An embrace was followed by a long kiss, which Emhyr interrupted before it could become dangerous - because Geralt was far from healthy enough for that.

So they sat there for a while, hand in hand, a strange old couple.   
"There's something I wanted to talk to you about," Emhyr finally said.  
"Oh, no. You know this is how this all started, don't you?" Geralt teased him.

Emhyr didn't go for it. It was obvious he wanted to get straight down to business.   
"I may have to wait a little longer to get out of politics," he said outright.  
Geralt looked at him in surprise.  
"Meaning?"  
"Meaning that Cirilla doesn't feel ready for her task yet."

Geralt frowned.  
"Does she want to back out? Should I talk to her?"  
Emhyr shook his head.   
"I think that telling her what to do all the time is part of the problem."

Geralt knew that was true. He himself had suggested that she follow that path, although he had never been convinced of it. And Emhyr had his own plans for her. It had always been that way, all her life, and in the end, she had given in, tried to subordinate herself to the big picture. But that had never been Ciri's way. He should be proud that she had finally decided to take her life into her own hands.

"We will try to find a compromise. She doesn't have to come into her inheritance right away. I don't intend to leave so soon."  
"You want to take things as they come?" Geralt asked astonished. "You, who always has to control everything?"  
"I don't have to control _everything_ , Geralt. You, for example, are very difficult to control. In fact, you should be in bed right now.“  
He tried to get up, but Geralt held him back.  
"Not yet", he said pleadingly. He had been staring at the ceiling for more than a week and was fed up with it. So Emhyr stayed seated.

"You know what, maybe I was a shitty bodyguard", Geralt finally said.   
Emhyr just raised his eyebrows.  
"But“, Geralt went on hesitantly, "but maybe I liked the whole husband business after all.“  
Emhyr looked at him in surprise - and he was generally hard to surprise.   
Geralt watched him seriously, maybe a little insecure. He wasn't hard to read, but now Emhyr wasn't quite sure.

"Do you want me to _propose_?"  
Geralt shrugged his shoulders. Well, at least one.  
"Maybe, one day."

And then he laughed, because Emhyr actually looked almost shocked.  
Not by the prospect. But because Geralt suggested it. The same Geralt who had fled just a short time after he had confessed his love to him. But he had returned. And he had made it clear - though not in words, but unmistakably - that he would always return.

And so Emhyr nodded slowly, shrugged his shoulders on his part and casually replied: "Well, you know what, maybe I will actually do that. One day."

They remained sitting there for a while, pretending to look at the flowers, holding hands - like the strange old couple they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how to put a gif here, but let me just tell you this: 
> 
> [I don't want to go!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM4-SyB2CTE)
> 
> But I have to, because we're done!
> 
> But you know what? [You were fantastic!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IGMBMFIQYs)
> 
> Okay, enough of the shameless quoting. 
> 
> Many thanks to all who have held out until here - and who enjoyed it even more :) I enjoyed it, and I am happy about every single comment. 
> 
> One last song, before we're closing the door ... because this love has got [No ceiling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJGOgHpcCwQ).
> 
> Chapter title is a line from "Sacred worlds".
> 
> What happened after this? Read on in ["Nothing else matters."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25282903/chapters/61297291)
> 
> Join me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/DreamAndroids) or [Tumblr](https://do-androids-dream-ao3acc.tumblr.com) for a chat!


	35. Adan

Hey you all, meet Adan. This was my first art commission, I went for a more comic style first, and I think he's super cute :)  
  
The artist's name is bond4ng and you can find him on [Instagram.](https://www.instagram.com/bond4ng/?hl=de)


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